


My best friend

by ChillCapivara



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Elia and Ashara are besties, F/M, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Humor, Rhaegar is an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12233172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillCapivara/pseuds/ChillCapivara
Summary: Elia and Ashara have been best friends since they were seven, and their deepest desire is to remain so until they're both two old grannies learning how to knit. They go through laughter and tears, victories and heartbreaks, struggles and parties - together, whenever, forever.





	1. Of dresses and birthday cakes

 

Elia was only a few months older than Ashara, but it was enough to make the eldest child wary of befriending someone that was only six years old, when she had just turned seven, and was therefore superior in matters of intellect and physical might.

  
Ashara settled that dispute by grabbing Elia by the hair and throwing her to the ground, yelling “Dumb girl!” with all the certainty and rage that a six-year-old could muster.

  
Ashara’s mother ran to the garden, horrified at her daughter’s behaviour, and promptly pulled the girls apart, subsequently berating her daughter. “Ashara, I told you not to fight with the other children here!”, she shrieked, nervously glacing upon her shoulder to assert the neighbours' reactions.

  
“She didn’t want to be my friend because I’m only six! But she’s seven!” Ashara replied, in distress due to the recent injustice she’d been a victim of.

  
“I don’t want to know. Apologize.” Her mother commanded, and when Ashara responded just by staring straight to the ground in stubborn defiance, the lady understandably started to lose her patience.

  
“Now!”, she nearly shouted, burning in embarrassment. Her troublemaking daughter had shown off a poor display of habits in front of the new neighbours, and she could already picture the gossip that would be spread about her otherwise innocent family.

“I’m sorry”, Ashara muttered quietly, not really looking at Elia.

  
Elia’s hair wasn’t aching anymore, and so the seven-year old took a moment to look at the girl in front of her. The younger one was nervously fidgeting and her little lips were curved in a pout.

  
Elia remembered when that idiot Cersei Lannister told everyone she was half-pig, and the laughter of the kids that mocked her. She remembered nearly ripping off that beautiful hair Cersei had, scratching her nails on that oh-so-pale skin.

  
“I’m sorry too”, Elia offered, and Ashara looked up at her with a newfound glint in her eyes, and then slowly, miraculously, both girls were smirking and showing off their little crooked teeth.

  
The second time they met, it was Ashara’s birthday, and her mother threw a small party to make Ashara happier with their change of address.

  
It worked. Their family wasn’t exactly rich, so Ashara had never come to expect big, lavish parties like the ones she’d seen in the movies. She was happy just to play with her friends and eat homemade sweets.

  
Ashara’s mom just called Elia’s family, and suddenly there they were, with their three children ready to play with the other bunch.

  
The trouble is Elia and Ashara had four brothers combined. They were the only girls at the party, and it’s a truth universally acknowledged that boys are absolutely disgusting to seven-year-old girls.

  
So Ashara told her brothers Allen and Arthur to stick their bums to the mud (or whatever else their underdeveloped minds could come up with) and Elia just silently excused herself from the company of Doran and Oberyn. The former graciously accepted her announced absence, whereas the latter whined and clang to her arm a bit, just until Doran bribed him with promises of extra slices of cake.

  
Elia and Ashara left the boys to do whatever they wanted to, and slipped away to Ashara’s room in a cloud of giggles.

  
They attempted to put on lipstick, and Elia nearly got it right, concentrating really hard on the task at hand, but then Ashara started to tickle her just below her armpit (who told her that she felt tickles there? It was Doran, wasn’t it?), and she had lipstick smudged all over her face.

  
Ashara nearly bended herself over from laughing, and sweet Elia didn’t miss her cue, readily chasing the other girl and staining her entire face with it.

  
By the end of the ordeal, both of them had their faces looking like tomatoes, and they were laughing so much at being naughty, that Ashara stole away an old camera and snapped multiple photographs of herself and Elia to register their pioneer make-up.

  
Then they went to the bathroom and removed the make-up (mostly), lest their mothers chided them, and moved on to the next adventure.

  
Ashara opened up her wardrobe and Elia marvelled at the clothes she had.

  
“Look at these dresses! They are beautiful!” She said excitedly, jumping on her feet and waving her hands around, smiling so much at the prospect of glitter and looking like a fairy-tale princess.

  
“Let’s try them on!” Ashara proclaimed, and she picked up the most beautiful one for Elia, whom she thought was probably the one who had the biggest chances of resembling a princess.

  
Elia put on the glittery one, and Ashara tried the one with the laces. They stood in front of the mirror, proudly, imagining crowns on their heads, and, on that moment, they were truly happy.

  
All her life, Elia dreamt of being a princess, even when people told her she was far too smart for that. It was the one wish she would give everything to make come true. Standing in front of the mirror on a really beautiful dress was the closest that little Elia’s heart could recognize as the real-life version of that dream.

  
“You look like a princess”, Ashara told her in earnest wonder, and Elia glowed in happiness.

  
“You too”, Elia replied with a joyful smile, but when Ashara looked at herself, she saw a little duckling trying to spread its wings and being lost in a confusion of feathers instead of the princess Elia was obviously meant to be.

  
“No, I look like your handmaid”, Ashara answered in resignation. “But that’s not a problem, mom says that in the stories the handmaid gets the happy endings too.”

  
They also tried grown-up shoes and naturally fell off them; then they painted each other’s nails while singing the one song they both knew, the Hannah Montana opening theme (YOU GET THE BEEEST OF BOTH WORLDS); and moved on to play chess, something they were both surprised at discovering that the other one played as well.

  
After Ashara’s mom had reunited all the children, sang Happy Birthday and cut the cake, it was left to Ashara to decide as to whom she was going to give the first piece to.

  
She hesitated for a second, just like she did on her other birthdays. She always had two binary choices. It was either mom or dad, Arthur or Allen, and she didn’t want to offend any family member by preferring one over the other, and so she came up with an unexpected solution.

  
She grinned from ear to ear and announced loud and clear, “To my best friend in the whole entire world!”, handing the slice to Elia.

Elia was flabbergasted. No one, not even Oberyn, who still clang to her like a baby sometimes, had ever said that she was their best friend, much less given her such a grand display of affection like the first piece of a birthday cake.

  
Something bloomed inside Elia’s chest when that little girl with cheeky grin and adoring eyes said that, something that would never wither, would last longer than the flowers her mother liked to grow.

  
So Elia smiled widely and hugged Ashara with pure emotion, faintly hearing the sounds of cheers from the other ones at the party, and quietly whispered in Ashara’s ear, “You are my best friend forever too.”


	2. Of indecisions and awkwardness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ashara needs a little help from her friend and Elia learns a lesson from a very special someone.

Incredibly, it was still much of the same when they went to college.

Elia was training to become a diplomat, and Ashara was a tad lost.

“You know that you can drop out of Administration, and no one will think less of you because of it”, Elia considered, looking up from her class notes to assert Ashara’s reaction.

Her friend tiredly scoffed. “Where do I go, though?”

Elia shrugged. “Try on something that makes you happy, for a change.”

Ashara stood silent, perhaps mulling over Elia’s words, perhaps too beaten down to even come up with an excuse.

Elia bit her lip, looked at Ashara and her eyes darted back and forth between them, deciding on how to appropriately approach the subject.

“Your parents won’t be mad at you if you settle on Civil Engineering, you know.”

Ashara was taken aback at how observing Elia could be, but then she had always been like that, so it was no surprise. She sighed in acceptance.

“Do you really think so?” Ashara whispered in uncertainty, biting the insides of her mouth, treating the subject as if she were treading muddy water.  

 _She took the bait,_ Elia realized. It had taken her forever to make Ashara open up about the icky tricky matter, and she certainly could understand why. Between them, Ashara was often the most out-going, so far as being called a ‘party girl’ by some baboons in high school, but people didn’t get to see much of Ashara’s well of insecurity. Right now, she looked pretty scared, and Elia just knew that Ashara had spent months fighting this matter internally. _And alone, the little bitch._

Sometimes Elia secretly fantasized about choking Ashara to death, and that was just one of these moments. The fact that Ashara even dared to keep a big struggle such as that to herself was frankly insulting.

But Elia wasn’t to be abated. She knew how her friend was, and now Elia silently congratulated herself for correctly predicting what the matter with Ashara was. Confident now that Ashara had publicly admitted that she wanted to do Engineering, Elia used all her encouragement to boost her friend’s slightly diminished confidence.

“I am sure of it! Uncle and Aunty only want to see you happy. And it _will_ make you happy. You know it.”

“But Elia…”

“But what?” Elia asked patiently, waiting for the emotional thunderstorm that was surely on its way.

“But what if I’m unemployed? Who will even want to hire me?” Ashara let out, and Elia dropped her notebook altogether.

“Everyone’s scared of unemployment, Ashara. It’s a real fear for everyone, and the truth is that we don’t know what career is going to come on top, we can’t know for sure what profession will make money, because there are lots of professions in lots of areas and people make money in the most unimaginable ways nowadays. But I’ll tell you this: you have more chances at being successful if you do something that you are good at, and Ashara, you’re really good at what you’re passionate about.”

“But am I good at it? Sometimes-“, she paused, then spoke louder; “Sometimes I think I’m really dumb.”

“You’re not dumb, Ashara, and you know it”, Elia insisted. “You’re smarter than the men around you and that is why you feel different.”

“I’m not talking about men; I’m talking about how my grades weren’t exactly flying A’s.”

“Of course they weren’t, the prospect of doing Administration never excited you. If you had focused on doing Engineering, perhaps your grades would have been much better.”

Ashara wondered at that, then smiled lopsidedly, took Elia’s advice to heart, let it grow on her and threw all caution to the wind (just like she always inevitably did) and moved on to study the subject that touched her heart the most, the wonderful unromantic world of Civil Engineering.

Elia couldn’t exactly figure out how such a frankly boorish subject such as Engineering could give the vividly expressive Ashara the hots, but alas, Ashara had always been a sea of contradictions.

It certainly made Ashara’s family quite relieved that she had finally found her way, and they knew they had Elia to thank for that.

“Why hello”, Arthur greeted Elia, making her snap to attention. “What is a lovely lady such as you doing all by herself at a party?” He asked her, using his most gallant tone of voice.

For Christ’s sake, was he _smouldering_ at her?

Elia scoffed. “Do girls really fall for that?”

Arthur chuckled and took a sip of his drink. “Not for lack of trying.”

Elia knew Arthur was back for the summer, and wondered at what the hell he had been up to in his college. She had heard impressive tales of college life, of how people suddenly developed hardcore addictions to Jack Daniels, big parties and socialism, apart from other unspeakable things (not Che Guevara). On second thoughts, though, Arthur didn’t strike her as someone who would fancy such fashions.

“What, are you _having fun_ in your college?” Even Elia, usually so poised, couldn’t keep the venom from dripping at the words ‘having fun’, which gave Arthur the very subtle hint that she wasn’t exactly excited about the prospect of him indulging in such vicious pastimes – perhaps excited wasn’t the word, no, the best term would probably be ‘HORRIBLY MORTIFIED’.

Arthur, now, wasn’t a daft man, despite what other unsophisticated lads would say about him, and he knew from the rare moment that Sweet Elia Martell Was Condescending Toward Him that Something Was Wrong and that he should Act Cautiously.

“If you consider lectures and assignments fun, then yes”, he flashed her that cheeky grin, that thing that all the Dayne siblings claimed as their trademark.

Elia narrowed her eyes at him, and tersely said “You better”, which would have made anyone afraid given the intensity with which she said those words, but then Arthur wasn’t anyone, he wasn’t scared of Elia and he didn’t succumb to threats. Perhaps he could be included in the madman category after all, because in the face of danger, he dared to laugh and even his eyes shone with amusement.

“You’re so cute when you’re jealous”, Arthur said, chuckling, barely able to sip his drink, thinking that the way Elia furiously blushed was nothing short of adorable.

“I’m not jealous of you”, Elia hastened to clarify, because God forbid Arthur thought that after years of friendship she even dared to care for him.

“Come on”, Arthur spoke, setting down his drink and touching Elia on her elbow, gently and slightly pulling her to him, “I know you think of me as a friend, and there’s nothing wrong with that, Elia. No need to try to shame me or anything”, Elia looked down in embarrassment, realizing what she just had done, “because I think of you as my friend too.”

“Yeah?” Elia replied, dumbfounded.

“Of course”, he smiled kindly at her, the way he always did, “I always have.”

Elia was left speechless. She liked to think herself reasonable and prudent, but then she was surprised at her own behaviour. Shaming people for their perfectly normal – and, in Arthur’s case, perfectly hypothetical – explorations of adulthood wasn’t something that she did on a normal basis. If Elia knew herself well enough (which she didn’t, because she was a young adult), she would have recognized that the source of this odd berating was in fact, something with deeper and stronger roots than she would have initially thought.

However, despite not being prepared to face the reason of her conduct yet, Elia was still wise beyond her years, and she knew bravery when she saw it.

Calling out people wasn’t easy, especially if said people were friends. The fact that Arthur was courageous to the point of confronting her and kind enough to go about it the way he did made her remember why she had always admired him.

The fact that he made her learn something new left her grateful, immensely so.

Elia couldn’t say anything, so she just gazed at Arthur, but then she was spared further embarrassment.

“Oi Arthur, come here! Tell us that story about the Brotherhood!” Allen bellowed from the kitchen, high as a kite.

Arthur chuckled apologetically; Elia joined him and smirked, not really thinking the situation very funny.

“Excuse me, Elia”, Arthur asked, and Elia kept her eyes on his back even as he disappeared behind the kitchen walls, thinking that, while Allen had saved her of awkwardness, he had also denied her the opportunity of delving deeper on places she had always edged on.

Ashara obviously noticed.

Hours later, when they were alone in Ashara’s room, getting ready for bed, Ashara decided to approach the subject, because few things were more sacred than having Elia in her camisoles smoothing the bedsheets in a dimly lit bedroom.

"Elia, can I ask you something?" Ashara pleaded, pretending to be distracted by treading her fingers in her hair.

"Hm?" Elia answered, preparing a double bed for her and Ashara to sleep (they always had sleepovers).

"Do you fancy my brother?" Ashara fixed her eyes on her friend.

Elia gulped. "Which one?" She feigned nonchalance, something that didn't work too well with Ashara.

"Arthur", Ashara replied, rolling her eyes.

"Of course not."

Elia was a terrible liar.

Ashara snickered. "Come on, tell the truth", Ashara asked, biting her nail.

Elia was slightly annoyed and very embarrassed at having to discuss that, even with Ashara.

“What I feel for your brother is… Respect”, Elia said, believing her tone to be firm; “I also like him, he’s been a friend for years now”, she mumbled.

"You speak so coldly of him", Ashara noted, slightly relieved.

"That's just the way I am", Elia replied, but then she hopped on to the bed next to her friend, grinned and showed Ashara two chocolate bars she had managed to sneak in secretly.

The sound of delight that Ashara made was almost inhumane, and Elia smiled widely.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought I would update earlier this week. Let me know your thoughts! :D


	3. Of persistence and bad blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashara faces weak men and Elia makes unwise choices.

“I dreamt of you, Ashara”, Robert Baratheon smirked.

She arched an eyebrow. “Did you, now?”

“Yeah”, he went on, not even looking at her. “You were scolding me, very angry, in a mad state, because I wasn’t putting any effort into our project. I was scared”, he laughed.

Ashara snorted, and when Robert left, she glared at the back of his head.

The gall of the man, to even dare to say that to her after his flimsy, despicable, sorry excuse of a work!

Robert was a funny man, Ashara thought. He could entertain, and when he put his mind into something, had the fury of a storm. However, his passion didn’t extend to everything he did in life, and so instead of putting on steadfast determination into less exciting duties, he just groaned, complained and did the minimal amount of action required.

Although everyone seemed to regard Robert as a strong man, Ashara was a little disgusted by this behaviour. She ended up doing most of the work, and didn’t even hear an excuse from him, or a thankful acknowledgment (she wasn’t even surprised). Instead, she got an appalling recount of a dream, as if it meant something.

If anything, the dream was just a confirmation of something she had already suspected. Robert could be strong, yes, but he acted weak. In the face of a strong, focused, hardworking woman, he got intimidated, as if her strength and his masculinity couldn’t coexist, and so his mind secretly came up with a way of diminishing her by making her the portrait of a tyrant, whereas Ashara had exhibited nothing but silent dignity in real life.

Instead of being deterred by that, though, Ashara took it as a compliment, brushed Robert off, and moved on.

Ashara was the only woman majoring in Civil Engineering that year, and being the only female on such a masculine environment was sometimes daunting and challenging. She lost count on the amount of times someone called her ‘bossy’ or ‘annoying’ (the same people often called Robert Baratheon ‘a leader’ and ‘soul-driven’), or the times that her opinions were completely disregarded. Her classmates behaved like foolish children, farting and burping in front of her, making vulgar and sexual jokes, somehow expecting her to laugh along.

Ashara knew deep down that they weren’t men enough to deal with her, and the notion disappointed her. They weren’t raised to comprehend that women could fit into several stereotypical labels, that they could be pretty, smart, fun, diligent and thorough. It was too much to handle for these boys.

But Ashara refused to be less than the person she was meant to be, and rose above her peers with obstinacy and what she liked to call the ‘eye of the tiger’, the roar that conquered whatever challenges life imposed.

“I am the fucking Ashara Dayne, you bitch”, she whispered to herself after looking at Robert’s back fading from view.

She grabbed her suitcase and went into the library to write a very important paper, but then she met an unexpected vision.

Elia Martell, her best friend, was _cuddling_ with Rhaegar Targaryen.

What.

In the.

Actual.

Fuck.

Ashara made the most reasonable choice and naturally hid behind a pillar to take a good look at them, never mind the passersby.

She was _shook._ Elia was – sighing? She was definitely making doe eyes at Rhaegar, smiling timidly, blushing.

Rhaegar Targaryen of all people.

Ashara had heard of Rhaegar’s reputation, and she wasn’t impressed. He was the son of Aerys Targaryen, the owner of Targaryen Enterprises, a very popular airline. They were said to be silver-haired, tied to the British monarchy.

That didn’t stop Rhaegar from becoming a socialist. Despite the fact that Ashara had nothing against socialists themselves – to each their own – she didn’t sympathize with the way Rhaegar raised violent riots in the university, how he shouted plenty of cheesy catchphrases against ‘the filthy bourgeoisie’, ‘our oppressors’, ‘stupid middle class’, although he himself lived off daddy’s money and always exhibited the newest iPhone for everyone to see. She didn’t like the way any opinions that didn’t match his own were painted by him as being ‘ignorant’, how he always sang the same sappy songs as ever in public with that ridiculous guitar, and then made himself look like a True Artist **™,** only to complain about the ‘lack of depth’ of people when his pretentious art wasn’t well-received.

In short, Ashara didn’t like him. Not one bit.

How he had managed to woo her friend like that was a mystery.

“Ashara, mind your own business”, Elia grumbled later, laying on the couch, rubbing her eyes.

“I am!” Ashara said indignantly. “I love you too much to let you be with that… That-“

“You crossed a line now”, Elia said seriously. “I understand that you’re concerned about me, but this is my business only. Rhaegar treats me just fine. If you would quit this nonsense I could tell you more about him.”

Ashara begrudgingly complied.

“He is not afraid of commitment, dear”, Elia said softly, trying to make Ashara understand. “He went in for me, put on effort. He told me he loved me”, Elia grabbed Ashara’s hand and stared at her unrelenting eyes. “And I had to believe him, you know? Because I can’t just sit around and wait for my prince to come someday, I have to work to get a good relationship. And I am trying to build it.”

Ashara smiled sadly. Sad that Elia had stopped believing in fairy tales somewhere along the way. She still remembered Elia watching romantic comedies and actually having fun with them, instead of labeling them as "too unrealistic".

“And he’s a poet”, Elia argued, staring off into the distance. “I think we balance each other well. I know I have my two feet on the ground, but he… Has a soul, and he lets me see it from time to time”, Elia smiled to herself.

Ashara bit back an answer. She had to let Elia make her own choices, for better or for worse, and it wasn’t hard to see that she was truly enamoured with that boy, and although Ashara didn’t like him, if he made her friend happy, that was everything that mattered.

Elia was glad to see Ashara coming around. Her approval meant the world, and Elia took it upon herself to make Ashara and Rhaegar get along, in the name of her peace of mind.

Another thing that disturbed her peace was that girl Cersei Lannister.

Elia had known Cersei for a long time, but never paid her much mind. Cersei, in all her pride and haughtiness, came off as silly to Elia, especially when Cersei tried to make Elia’s life more difficult.

Rhaegar once introduced them at a gala party, and when Elia moved in to kiss Cersei’s cheek out of politeness, Cersei stared Elia up and down, and then asked aloud who had invited the kitchen wench.

Elia was dumbfounded, and her state of confusion only increased when everyone laughed along Cersei’s joke.

Elia tried to force a laugh, but it didn’t come. She refused to cry, but Cersei planted a seed in Elia’s bosom that night, one that brought only hurt.

Now every time someone uttered Cersei’s name, Elia saw red. When Cersei paraded herself around the campus, surrounded by blind male followers, Elia couldn’t help but flinch. She despised everything about Cersei Lannister.

So when people asked Elia about Cersei, Elia merely said “The blonde slut?”, and pretended to herself that she didn’t feel anything toward that girl.

She knew it was a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm late for this update...?  
> I'm sorry guys, this week has been crazy, and I'm gonna be snowed under work until December. Hopefully it won't interfere in this work though <3  
> As always, a penny for your thoughts.


	4. Of acceptance and karaokes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia sees things as they are and Ashara gets drunk.

“Come on, Elia”, Rhaegar purred from the bed. “Just a bit more.”

“What are you talking about? Yesterday you got plenty”, she cracked up from her seat by the desk, answering several emails from the embassy. She was horribly tired, working as an intern had more to do with resistance than actual skill. Who knew?

“What, is that going to solve the issue with North Korea or something?”

“Maybe, if I had been working at the North Korean embassy.”

He snorted. “You’re filthy.”

“And you love it”, Elia snickered, turning around and sending a kiss his way. He pretended to get it in the air, and looked at her with satisfaction.

After some twenty minutes of hearing her mechanical writing, Rhaegar sighed and went into the bathroom. He left the door open as he did his morning hygiene.

It was this kind of domesticity that Elia revelled in. She could match Rhaegar’s passion, but was even more moved by their intimacy. She liked to touch his clothes, feel his smell impregnated in his leather jacket, fold their sheets on the morning after, make him coffee, share his routine. Share his life.

“Did you see Cersei Lannister’s new car?” Rhaegar asked from the bathroom. She looked up and realized that he was combing his hair.

She rolled her eyes at the question.

“No, I didn’t.” Who the hell cared about that?

“It’s a Cadillac. Very pretty.”

 _Yes, even Cersei Lannister’s farts smell like roses,_ Elia thought unkindly, but she bit her tongue. “Do you like Cadillacs?” She asked instead.

“Doesn’t everyone?” He rebuffed.

There was silence for a while. Elia could hear the water dripping from the sink.

“Cersei said to me that you knew each other since you were children.”

_Why is he talking about her so much?_

“Yeah”, she said simply and pointedly, expecting him to take the cue.

“She also said that she thought you didn’t like her.”

_Of course Cersei would try to make me the villain._

“Did she, now.” Elia’s voice was colder than the Titanic hitting the iceberg, but Rhaegar didn’t seem to realize that.

“Something about you beating her when you were children…?”

She finally snapped. “Why are you incessantly talking about Cersei?”

He gaped. “Why, no reason in particular.”

“Don’t give me that, please”, she rubbed her eyes in annoyance.

“I just think that she’s…” He stared at the ground, looking for an answer.

“She’s _what?_ ”

_Come on, say it, you little…_

“She’s easy on the eye”, he said, and his lack of shame in saying so left a bitter taste on Elia’s mouth.

“You don’t remember that party?” She got up from the chair, and decided that it was a good time to quarrel.

Rhaegar narrowed his eyes at her, as if her words were foreign to him.

“It was a joke, Elia. Everyone laughed.”

“Indeed.” She looked him up and down, trying to make him remember his mistake. _You laughed along too,_ she urged, _you abandoned me, humiliated me, left me to the wolves,_ she said without any words.

“Dear Lord, we’ve been over this already!” He spoke louder, started to fidget, the remembrance of his fault already making him uneasy.

“It seems it was not enough, seeing as you continue to mention her name as if she were a saint!” Elia exclaimed truthfully, trying to make him see reason, but trying to hurt him at the same time.

“You’re talking like a teenage girl again”, he tried to say, exasperated.

“Don’t even try that! What sort of boyfriend does that?”

“It was a joke!” Rhaegar insisted, throwing his hands to the air.

“It was cruel!” Elia felt her eyes water, and furiously shut them down, trying to suppress the hurt and concentrating on the anger that came with the memory of malicious laughter, sharp teeth, proud eyes, and feeling like a lesser woman. “That was supposed to be my night, Rhaegar! I had finally graduated after years of hard work, of commitment and sacrifices, and she took the liberty to joke at my expense, as if I were some… Some clown!” Elia gasped, her eyes roamed the entire room, as if it were swallowing her up. “I was the smartest girl in college, and that was supposed to be the night of my victory, and she _ruined_ it”, Elia’s voice broke and she choked back the lump in her throat, the memory of the way her skin crawled at hearing that joke overwhelming her. “She made me realize that no matter how smart or dedicated I am, it’s never enough.”

“You’re clearly overreacting”, he said in a lower tone, afraid of stepping on a minefield.

“Why can’t you just respect me?” Elia threw the final card, the one she had been holding close to her chest.

Rhaegar had no response for that.

Things got edgier after that row.

It was a Friday, when Ashara’s brothers held a big party and invited the entire world to their house. Elia and Rhaegar were barely speaking, and decided to attend more out of civility than disposition to celebrate.

Elia would have loved to talk to Ashara, but her friend had already swallowed too many shots to have a serious conversation. Doran and Oberyn were there too, but she already knew what they would say, and perhaps she didn’t want to listen to them, and so she inevitably turned to…

Him.

The great inevitable.

“So how are you?” Arthur dropped the pretentious jokes, and asked her sincerely for her well-being. They were far from the madding crowd, near Arthur’s room, a place where she rarely went as a child, thinking it was holy ground.

“I’m fine”, she smiled untruthfully, and he quickly realized it.

He stared into her eyes, not unkindly, allowing her the space to really state her true feelings.

“Is it so obvious?” She contained a sigh.

Arthur pursed his lips and nodded, wanting to make things lighter and easier for her.

“I thought I was being more discreet”, she admonished herself, looked down in shame, shame for not being able to hide herself well enough.

“I think you’re facing it with as much dignity as one can manage, my dear, but even you can’t hide unhappiness”, Arthur looked at her with kind eyes, and when she smiled tentatively, only to fail miserably and cry like a little girl, he hugged her against his strong chest, and the warmth was everything Elia needed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Arthur asked quietly, careful not to stroke her hair and overstep his boundaries.

She still breathed hard, but after some time, she wiped at her eyes, sat down on the couch and reluctantly nodded.

Arthur followed suit.

“It’s like he slowly faded away”, Elia spoke, biting her nails, stopping the tears from falling. “He said he loved me, he made my life his as well… But now he’s barely even there”, she said incredulously. Watching him go was like watching a painting slowly dry, and all the colours turn to grey. “He does things that I don’t like, talks about things I don’t like, talks to people I don’t like…”

“Do you argue?” Arthur asked, slightly cringing at the man’s behaviour.

“We used to, a lot. But now there’s only distance.” It came to Elia’s mind all the times that she called him to ask where he was, and for some reason he didn’t pick up the phone (did he run out of battery? Was his phone broken? Where was he? Was he okay? Was he in trouble?), and all the times that she ended up falling asleep alone on the bed, wondering what he was doing.

“Do you…” Arthur got up and faced away from Elia. It was sore to ask her this, and yet she needed to speak and he needed to know. “Do you still love him?”

He gazed at her, asserting her reaction, reading her every facial feature.

Elia took her time to answer that.

Rhaegar had been a summertime fling, and then something else. The in between those two terms had been wonderful, it had given Elia a beautiful multi-coloured palette for her to paint. The transition between the something else and the old portrait was a sadder one.

“I have loved him”, Elia replied with a lump in her throat. “But we’ve changed.”

“People change”, Arthur countered. “Do you think that’s enough to end it?”

Elia remembered Rhaegar smiling lopsidedly, not even trying to hide his enthusiasm about other women, and her stomach churned.

“I think it’s just a matter of time before it does.”

Arthur even felt guilty at hearing that, but not exceedingly so.

“That’s your answer, right there, then”, he nodded. “Of course, it’s your choice”; he hastened to clarify, not wanting to influence her in any way. “If you think it’s worth a try…”

“I don’t know”, Elia confessed, and she felt her chest lighter at the confession. It was like getting rid of a burden.

“You’re still going to grieve this… But then you’ll get over it.” Arthur said delicately, trying to make her feel better, even patting her shoulder.

“Thank you, Arthur”, she smiled at him, and he felt that excitement, so familiar to him now. “You’ve been a friend to me.”

“You can always count on me”, he reassured her. “I’m on your team.”

Elia felt simply joyous at that declaration.

She found that, despite having to end things with Rhaegar, there were still many people that cheered for her, wished her well, would be always there for her.

Doran, her quiet companion. Her elder brother had learned how to do different hairstyles just for her, without a word of complaint. The day she had seen him most scared was the day he had had a nightmare, and, trembling, went to check in on her and Oberyn during the night, saying quietly that he had dreamed that both his siblings were gone, leaving him alone in this world. Elia asked him to stay with her that night, more concerned for him than for herself.

Oberyn, who followed her everywhere, was the most devoted brother that could have ever lived. He was there when she got sick, tended for her with love and care, and even did her homework when she had to do extra chores: all this with a smile on his face, and a tight fist for whoever mistreated her.

Arthur, the odd one, the one she never knew where to place. He said he was on her team, grinned at her like they shared a secret, and yet every time he touched her she felt his reluctance, his nerves on edge. Despite the weight of the unsaid between them, he had always been kind to her, endlessly so, kind and strong. He was manly but not macho, confident but not conceited, gentle but not fragile. One of Elia’s most treasured memories was that one time in which he had borrowed a pen from her, and he could have very well kept it to himself, but instead, as soon as he realized he still had it in his possession, he had the honesty to rush to her class and give it back, all apologies. Elia still had that pen, and whenever she had a test in school or university, it was that pen that she used: her lucky charm.

 And Ashara.

_Ashara._

When Arthur stopped rubbing Elia’s back and they went back into the party, they found themselves face to face with the Drunk Ashara once more.

The Drunk Ashara was a tough albeit beautiful creature, usually found in college parties and, God forbid, karaokes. This time was no different, as the beast was in her natural habitat, with a mic in hands.

“EVERYONE!” The Drunk Ashara shouted, manically giggling. “THIS GOES TO MY BEST FRIEND, THAT LADY THERE! I LOVE YOU ELIA!”

Elia couldn’t suppress the laugh that came over her, she covered her mouth with her hand at seeing the Drunk Ashara frantically dance to the sound of Natalie Cole’s _This Will Be_.

“ _This will be_

_An everlasting love_

_This will be_

_The one I've waited for_

_This will be_

_The first time anyone has loved me, oh...oh...oh..._ ”

Elia looked over to see Arthur laugh in amazement, gaping and staring wide-eyed at the image of his sister dedicating a song to her friend.

Ashara was rocking the stage, her passion and joy flowing through her body and voice.

“ _I'm so glad_

 _SHE found me in time_ ”, Ashara corrected the original lyrics with a wink to Elia.

_“And I'm so glad that_

_SHE rectified my mind_

_This will be_

_An everlasting love for me, whoa, ho”_

Once more, Ashara was making Elia emotional with her demonstrations of affection. It had been like that ever since the first slice of the birthday cake, through high school, when Ashara had asked Elia out to the prom because no one else (ahem, Arthur) had had the guts to do so, even when several boys had asked Ashara out, and they danced the night away.

“ _Loving you_

_Is some kind of wonderful_

_Because you've shown me_

_Just how much you care_

_You've given me the thrill of a lifetime_

_And made me believe you've got more thrills to spare, oh_

_This will be_

_An everlasting love, oh, yes, it will now_

_You've brought a lot of sunshine into my life_

_You've filled me with happiness I never knew_

_You gave me more joy than I ever dreamed of_

_And no one, no one can take the place of you”_

The fast part was approaching, and Ashara extended her hand to Elia, so she could join her on the little set-up stage. Elia laughed, reached Ashara’s hand and let Ashara lift her up.

Ashara put the microphone in front of the both of them, so they could perform the duet, and when they did, it was fantastic, so good that it forever entered the History of Drunk Karaokes.

_This will be, you and me, yes, siree, eternally_

_Huggin' and squeezin' and kissin' and pleasin' together forever through_ _rain or whatever_

_Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you and me_

_So long as I'm livin' true love I'll be givin', to you I'll be servin'_ _cause you're so deservin'_

“You’re so deservin’”, Ashara whispered on Elia’s ear, and that’s when Elia’s eyes watered, catching sight of the vibrant Ashara lost in a sea of purple and red and tacky party lights, grinning at her simply because she loved her.

“I love you”, Elia said, and it never sounded so true, so she hugged Ashara, and everyone applauded, but then Ashara stumbled backwards and Arthur had to catch her before she hurt herself.

It was on that moment that Elia realized that, no matter how colourless some of her relationships got, she could always find Ashara underneath the rainbow. Through rain or whatever.

That night, Elia passed the night in Ashara’s room.

She would find out later that month that Rhaegar had also spent that very same night in someone else’s bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I effing love that song, and my God you should listen to it aksoaksp  
> Thanks everyone for the kind reviews and kudos, I was very happy to read them! <3


	5. Of resolutions and helping hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia makes resolutions and Ashara ignores her pride.
> 
>  
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains mentions of an underage, unhealthy relationship. There is nothing graphic, but I thought to put up this trigger warning just in case. No one should get upset by reading this.

“A girl of sixteen? _Sixteen,_ Rhaegar?” Elia cried, shaking with rage and disgust.

Rhaegar just remained in silence, but his eyes spoke louder than any false apologies ever could. He had the eyes of someone without shame.

“You know you could go to jail for this. Her brothers certainly want this, and who could blame them? You… You _groomed_ her, you had sex with her, left her pregnant, and then you abandoned her!” Elia exclaimed indignantly.

Elia wasn’t only mad at Rhaegar due to his callousness with her own feelings, but for doing something far more unforgivable.

The girl wasn’t even in her senior year in high school. She still hadn’t learned electricity in Physics, or polynomials, or read T. S. Eliot. Elia’s heart ached with compassion for that girl, Lyanna was her name.

Elia knew Lyanna had always lived on a very masculine environment, surrounded by three brothers. Just like every teenager, it came a time in her life when she rebelled and changed her life and even herself on a 180º turn. Lyanna then met Rhaegar, who spoke of songs and dreams, of love and destiny, and how could Lyanna resist his charms, when he was older than her and so different from her family?

But Rhaegar’s interest soon faded away, and with it, his sense of duty and obligation. Rhaegar only pursued his whims and then moved on to something else, something that bore the promise of excitement but not commitment. Just like the dragon tattoo on his arm, he spat fire and then flew away.

“You are a very talented man, Rhaegar”, Elia acknowledged. Her voice was breaking, but she made an effort to say it. “But you leave people behind. You take beautiful people and you break them.” Rhaegar turned away from her, eyes fixated on the floor, but that did not deter Elia. “Nothing can ever grow near you, because you are a fickle man, living a fickle life. You aren’t any more valuable than an alley cat.”

Elia drew deep breath. “And you aren’t going to get away with this. You will get a steady job, one of those that you despised so much, and then every month you will help Lyanna Stark provide for your child. It’s past the time you grew up.”

Rhaegar turned and glared at her, but did not object.

“And then we will move on with our lives, Rhaegar. We will heal our wounds, and we are going to be _very_ , very happy.”

Elia looked him up and down for the last time, and then she walked out of the room. Despite all the damage that Rhaegar had caused, what she said was true: she wouldn’t settle for anything other than a happy ending. She knew she had it in her ever since she was a child.

_Unbowed, unbent, unbroken,_ she repeated to herself, cherishing the words, musing at how they seemed to gain new meaning, and then she walked to the lobby, where too many people were waiting for new developments.

She looked at all the faces and nodded with severity.

“He’s going to pay the pension.”

Everyone let out a sigh of relief, and Lyanna Stark and her brothers scrambled to their feet to talk to her.

“What did he say?” Lyanna asked, with her fidgeting hands, wide and scared eyes, parted lips.

Elia snorted. “Not much.” She took Lyanna’s hands in her own, and looked deep inside the girl’s eyes, looking for her soul. “Lyanna, what I mean is true”, Elia said, choking on her words.

It was incredible how she had managed to speak to Rhaegar without breaking down, and yet she was struggling with emotion when speaking to a girl she barely knew. “I can and will help you with anything you need. Appointments with an obstetrician, money to buy a crib, clothes, diapers. It’s going to be difficult and you’re going to cry, but I want you to know that you will never… You will never…”, Elia pretended she didn’t see the tear that ran down the bridge of Lyanna’s nose, and Elia whispered, “You will never be alone.”

“Thank you so much”, Lyanna whimpered, and Elia enveloped her in a strong hug.

“I’m still going to kick his ass”, Brandon Stark grumbled behind them, and Elia was tempted to chuckle, but then she noticed that he meant what he said, and, well, she wasn’t going to put on strong objection.

“Yeah, count me on”, Oberyn said with great annoyance.

“And me”, Ashara huffed. “I know I’m being a terrible person by saying this, but there’s something in me that is stronger…”

Elia rolled her eyes, not unkindly. “I know you warned me.”

Ashara chuckled drily, but in her heart she knew it was wrong.

Elia did not mind.

She was true to her word. Throughout every step of Lyanna’s pregnancy, she was there. She attended the appointments with the obstetrician, she helped Lyanna pick new clothes that fitted the changes in her body and gifted the new mother with a crib.

In the end, it was Lyanna that gave Elia the best gift: the knowledge that she was a big person.

Elia closed her eyes when she stepped into the sun, letting the compassion that she felt toward Lyanna wash over her completely, bathing her in absolute bliss.

Elia had never been a very outgoing person; she usually tended to be closed in on herself, and occasionally had difficulties in conceiving other people as complex. The habit of stereotyping people as just “poor” or “sick” or “them” made it harder for Elia to imagine them as deep individuals, just like her. When Elia helped Lyanna, she recognized sheer humanity in that girl, and, in doing so, amplified her own personhood.

The feeling was exhilarating, and it was a balm to aches she once carried. Elia stepped into other people’s shoes and looked at the world around her, and for once it didn’t seem like a distant reality, it was an open book.

It was by examining the relationships in her life that she realized that she still had something to do.

So on a Saturday morning; she let Arthur drive her down to a mansion she once dreaded. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t scared – she was, very much so. She couldn’t help but squirm in her seat, bite her nails, almost hyperventilate. She considered turning away and just forget she had ever had this crazy idea, but then she knew it would eat her out eventually, and she preferred to be rid of this burden soon rather than allowing it to become a regret.

Arthur glanced at her fondly from the driver seat, and, instead of saying silly words of encouragement; he parked the car and didn’t rush to open the doors immediately.

He tenderly held Elia’s hand, letting his fingers envelop her smaller ones, and the warmth was enough to comfort her.

_Thank you for coming with me,_ she said with her eyes, and he grinned sheepishly.

He noticed that her eyes weren’t exactly remarkable: Ashara had undisputedly the prettiest eyes he had ever seen, and Elia’s ordinary brown eyes weren’t a match to Ashara’s violet ones, but Elia had that glint in her look, and Arthur realized that it was the way her eyes behaved when she looked at him that made her simply enchanting.

They quietly got out of the car, and, with nerves afloat, Elia knocked on the hardwood door.

 

 

Ashara walked out of a hardware store carrying a huge bag of _sand._

Ashara hated sand. It was rough, and coarse, and irritating, and it got everywhere, but because she wasn’t Anakin Skywalker, she just resigned herself to carry the bag to the laboratory in which she worked.

Her team needed the sand to test out a new sustainable water filter that would be sent to support some of the poorest regions in the world.

It felt good to be part of something as important as this, even if she had to do some of the heavy work – and this task in particular was _most definitely_ such.

Ashara wasn’t exactly managing to carry the bag. She put it on her back, walked three steps and then had to put it down, panting all the way through.

The laboratory was still a half mile away from the store, and she thought about calling a taxi, but then her anxieties came into play, and she questioned herself if it would be a terrible offense to ask for a taxi driver to let her carry a bag of sand in their car.

Just as she was pondering on what to do next, she heard someone calling.

“Hey”, Lyanna Stark’s shy brother appeared before her. “You’re Elia’s friend, are you not?”

“Yes”, she smiled a tad nervously at him, and by the way he swallowed, she took it that he was somewhat tense as well. “I’m sorry, I know that you’re Lyanna’s brother, but I don’t quite… Remember your name?”

“Oh, no problems”, he blushed with no reason, “my name is Eddard.”

“Ah, Eddard”, she smiled more comfortably now, “and I’m Ashara, in case you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t”, he said simply. “I remember you.”

What did one reply to that?

“Thank you, I guess…”

She realized then that he was staring at her bag of sand, and he looked intrigued.

“What are you doing with this?” He pointed at the bag, which seemed to have become the elephant in the room.

Ashara proceeded to organize her thoughts and explain her scientific endeavours in a simple manner, so that people wouldn’t look at her as if she were one of the Salem witches.

Ashara thought that Eddard seemed interested in her explanation, but he was hard to read. Not many signals of emotion were displayed on his features.

“Well, you aren’t carrying this yourself, are you?”

She knew that he was being pragmatic and that she shouldn’t be offended, but she was, if only slightly so.

“Why, you don’t think I’m capable of it?”

“No”, he cut her off, quite bluntly. “It normally takes two men to do that. I can’t do that alone myself, and your place is still far. Would you like some help?”

The clarity with which he saw the situation calmed her sense of wrongness and she allowed herself to smile and, if only once, ignore her laboriously built pride and just accept a helping hand.

“Thank you, you’re most kind”, she smiled thankfully, and he nodded.

They both picked up the bag. She showed him where her workplace was, and they shared the burden through every step of the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF!  
> I'm HORRIBLY sorry for the lack of updates in the past weeks. Life really, REALLY got in the way this time: I had like, five exams and also had to finish my last year project. While the project itself is my life's passion, I admit that I'm a bit tired of it, especially after doing it all by myself, which, of course, wouldn't be a problem, except there's other four people in my group.  
> I think that it all reflects on my writing, you can see there's little to no quality, but we're all here just to have fun with our ships and our feminism, so I'll just keep doing whatever I'm doing XD  
> I also realized that there's probably tons of grammar mistakes, and I apologize for them, so if you spot one of them, you can tell me and I'll just correct it right off the bat.  
> As always, a penny for your thoughts! <3 Hope you've all had a good week!


	6. Of lions and hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia heals wounds and Ashara experiences new feelings.

“Elia, dear”, Cersei Lannister smiled from ear to ear, though there was nothing remotely amicable about that. “Why did you come by to visit?”

Elia felt her breath quell.

“Well, I-“

“You can talk to my father if you want a job”, Cersei arched an eyebrow high in her forehead.

Elia clenched her fists.

“I have a job, thank you”, Elia said.

“Well, then?” Cersei looked bored more than anything.

Elia looked at Arthur in apology, but he understood, gazed briefly at Cersei and at their surroundings, and then excused himself.

“This should be interesting”, Cersei sat down in the sofa, and didn’t invite Elia to do so as well.

“I have come here to…” Elia fidgeted, and hesitated. “Talk.”

“Talk”, Cersei flashed a very patronizing smile.

_This is it._

Elia knew Cersei from a very young age, in fact, it had all started when they were children.

 _“Elia Martell looks like a pig”,_ Cersei said when she was six and ‘pig’ was the most sordid piece of vocabulary she knew.

_“Every time that Martell girl opens her mouth I want to die.”_

_“Who invited the kitchen wench?”_

_“All my life I thought that the stereotypical rich dumb blonde was a Hollywood invention, but then I met Cersei Lannister_.”

_“You will never be as smart as Elia.”_

_“I mean, who wouldn’t pity her? She’s so sickly, and just look at her – who would want to fuck_ that? _”_

_“Oh no, her daddy is rich, she does it for free.”_

_“That blonde slut?”_

_“You could try to be more… More like Cersei Lannister. Just look at those boobs. She’s so hot.”_

_“Cersei said you hated her.”_

_“Elia Martell is calling you a slut.”_

“I wanted to say that I…”, Elia started, “I am sorry, Cersei. I came here to apologize for everything.”

Cersei looked confused, and Elia thought it was a sad business that Cersei wasn’t at all used to receiving apology requests.

“Ever since we were children”, Elia went on, “there has been this rift between the both of us”, it was finally time to acknowledge that, “and I think it got ten times worse after I started to date Rhaegar. I’m only here because…”, she hesitated, wary of displaying an expression of her true feelings, “Because I regret.”

Elia could barely breathe, and her stomach seemed to churn at the admission, but she carried on.

“After all these years, looking back”, she whispered, and her shoulders sagged as if she were still a schoolgirl afraid to talk to her crush, only this was harder than that, “I wish I had been a friend to you.”

There. Elia extracted thorny weeds from her heart, and suddenly it was as if she was able to breathe again.

Cersei’s face got tempestuous, a rare thing for a poised and cold lioness, and so she got up and turned her back to Elia, but remained there, listening to each and every one of her words.

“I wish I’d had the wisdom to see that you were never my enemy. And you see – I’ve said some terrible, absolutely _awful_ things about you. Just thinking about it now makes me sick. And I’ve come to ask for your forgiveness.”

Cersei turned around, and she was astounded.

“My forgiveness?”

“Yes, your forgiveness. Because Cersei, I _forgive you_.”

 “But I didn’t ask for it”, Cersei said in turn, more out of astonishment than malice.

“You didn’t have to. I did it for myself. I am not sure about you, but I let my hate for you eat me up. It was horrible. And you don’t have to be my friend or anything like that, but I think it would be good to put all this to rest. For you and for me.”

Cersei pondered for a moment.

“When did you think about all of this?” Cersei asked.

“After I broke up with Rhaegar. I realized that he had probably been bad to you.”

“He was”, Cersei said quickly. “We were together once, and then on the next day he mocked me, said my cellulite was enough to make any man go limp.”

“I am sorry. That must have been horrible”, Elia said, and she meant every word.

“It was”, Cersei admitted, quite defensively. “I was humiliated.”

“I know how that feels like”, Elia smiled sadly. “So you see, we never even hated each other… It was just…”

“Pain”, Cersei followed suit.

They measured each other up, but there was no tension this time.

In fact, the Lannister’s outrageously expensive mansion was the most peaceful place Elia had ever been.

Elia looked at Cersei and she was pleased to realize she felt nothing except empathy for her. Reflecting on all the times she had watched Cersei from a distance, the latter always seemed to be surrounded by men, but never to be really engaged in their talk. Despite all the sophistication that Cersei showed to the world, Elia realized that what had disturbed her about Cersei was that she appeared to have it all: beauty, money and intelligence; but there was something lacking about that picture.

It took Elia some time and effort to recognize that there was a whole other part of Cersei that was hidden away from prying eyes. People always saw the golden lioness, but nobody ever thought about the cost that Cersei paid for having that beautiful, miserably empty life.

Who was Cersei Lannister? Who was Cersei, when she looked at herself in the mirror?

She wasn’t a queen, she wasn’t an enemy, she wasn’t a lover.

She was a woman, and she was in pain.

She used to exorcize that pain by concentrating on her anger for Elia, but after some time that mechanism had stopped working, and the terrible feeling of having no one except oneself overtook Cersei, and that’s when the feud between the women got stronger.

Cersei used to play soccer when she was young, but then everyone, from her father to her coach and colleagues, patted her head and told her one day that now that she was a grown up little lady, she could do little lady things and leave the battle to other people.

There wasn’t a single day in her life when Cersei didn’t stop and think about the feeling of grass under her feet, of running and scoring like mad, of the real roar that reverberated through her soul every time she got her feet on the ball and scored a goal.

Cersei constantly wondered at what her life would have been like had she stayed in soccer. The memories of the game and of herself (what a fantastic creature she had been then) were always a quick medicine to moments of self-consciousness, but, as wonderful as they were, they were never enough to make her life complete or even happy.

Elia felt grateful for her life, then. She would never be as rich or as beautiful as Cersei, but she had lots of people she could rely on, whilst Cersei was utterly alone in the world. And when all that Cersei was left with was herself, she raged in silence, and that pain seeped through every one of her relationships like venom, and she couldn’t even stop it, because she couldn’t make people see that the rooms of her house were deep dark, even though the balconies were dazzling.

To Elia, the Lannister mansion seemed like a freaking nice place to live, but she knew that no grand rooms or luxury could substitute the presence of another human being.

_For hands of gold are always cold…_

Something died that day, and both women let it die. They released all the crows they kept in their backyards, and, should they feel the bitter sting of tears in their future, it would never be because of one another, ever again.

Cersei tentatively smiled, a shy, little smile, and, for the first time in forever, she didn’t use it as a veil to threats or as means to diminish someone.

“It was good of you to come by, Elia Martell.”

_But a woman’s hands are warm._

 

Ashara went to have lunch with her co-workers when she saw Eddard Stark again.

He was eating by himself. His whole body language seemed to express discomfort at being in that situation, and the way he kept his face lowered, staring at the distance, projected an image of sadness.

Ashara didn’t know Eddard well enough. They were almost strangers, per se, but seeing him all alone while she was surrounded by people tugged at her heartstrings.

He had been so kind to her, taking up his own free time to help her without gaining nothing in return except gratitude.

Ashara glanced at her colleagues and bit her lip.

“I’ll just come by in a sec”, she told them, and then she let her feet guide her across the hall to him.

“Hey”, she smiled tentatively when she came to a halt.

He looked up from his seat and when his eyes focused on her, his whole face seemed to inadvertently light up.

“Hey”, he answered, pursing his lips into the resemblance of a smile.

After accidentally gazing at the way his face had changed when he saw her for a few seconds, Ashara roved her eye to the empty chair before him.

“So I’m having lunch with my colleagues and… I-I saw you here alone, and do you want to have lunch with us?”

Ashara would reflect later on the way she had stuttered. Stuttering had never been an issue.

Eddard became tense at her offer, and she noticed. There was some deep instinct in her that told her to just withdraw her suggestion and jump to her death from some window, but she tried to ignore that part of herself and just root her feet to the ground, let him choose.

“I…” He started. “Thank you for your offer, but…”

Ashara had read _Pride and Prejudice_ a dozen or more times to know that putting a shy man on the spotlight could be beyond awkward, not just to the other people but mostly to the man himself; so she made an extra effort to not mistake Eddard’s shyness for arrogance and to respect his limits.

“It’s nothing”, she smiled assertively, but she felt like crying on the inside. “Have a good lunch… Just come by if you change your mind.”

She turned on her heels and started to walk away, but then the hasty sound of metal scraping against the floor caught her off-guard.

“Ashara”, he said her name hurriedly, and she turned around to face him again, slightly wide-eyed.

“You see, it’s not that I don’t want to have lunch with you…”, he started, in a hushed tone, “It's just that I was expecting my brother to come by.”

Oh.

Ashara realized how _dramatic_ she was.

“Oh”, she just said dumbly.

“Yeah”, he chuckled drily, looking at his foot. He seemed more at ease now, as if explaining his situation as it was already relieved him.

“So you, you want to have lunch with me?”

Ashara felt that thrill inside her when she saw him blushing furiously and then nodding his head.

She grinned cheekily and then moved to sit down on the empty chair.

“Which one of your brothers is coming by and when is he arriving?” She asked him, just as a waiter came by.

“It was Brandon, my older brother, but I think he won’t be coming after all”, he mumbled. “He was supposed to be here about forty minutes ago.”

She clicked her tongue. “He made you miss your lunch break.”

Eddard looked down at his plate, and his face went entirely rigid. Suddenly he couldn’t bear to look at her anymore.

“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?” She asked, very confused.

“No, not at all”, he smiled uncomfortably. “It’s only I don’t have a lunch break. Not any longer.”

“How come?” She frowned.

He hesitated, and his head hung down in defeat.

“I lost my job about a week ago”, he confessed, and Ashara felt like giving herself a slap for not piecing the clues together sooner.

That explained everything.

“I’m so sorry to hear that”, she said after a few seconds, and she hoped from the bottom of her heart that he could hear the truth in her words.

He snorted. “Brandon said he was coming by with a guy he knew that may or may not have a job for me. But I guess not…”

 “What do you work with?”

“I’m an engineer.”

“ _Really?_ ” She grinned. “Me too!”

He smiled sheepishly at her excitement. “From what area are you?”

“Civil. And you?”

“Electrical.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, why did you lose your job?” She perched herself on her seat to hear him better.

“I don’t mind”, he clarified. “It wasn’t my fault. I worked for Baelor Engineering.”

Well shit.

Baelor Engineering was one of the most prominent construction companies in the country, and it turned out on the last week that it was knee-deep in corruption.

It was a scandalous affair. Politicians and owners of the company had committed graft and the scandal was sure to reach the very top of the country; but then Eddard himself was a simple engineer, and Ashara thought that it was just overall sad for him to lose his source of income and, to some degree, his own honour due to people he had never even met.

“You have very bad luck, uh”, she tried to joke, as if to lift up his spirits, and it worked to an extent.

“It was just one week after I saw you again. You jinxed me”, he accused her playfully.

“But really now, things will get better soon”, she tried to say, but it sounded stupid even to her own ears.

He didn’t point that out.

“Thanks”, he said. “I’m only worried, you know. Lya is pregnant, Benjen is still in college, and with my father gone, I was paying for it along with Brandon, but now…”

Ashara noticed how different their lives were. He actually had to provide for his family.

Reality seemed to slap her in the face once more.

“I even brought my curriculum, Brandon said the guy had a job…”, he muttered, and she could hear the sharp disappointment in his tone, even when he spoke so low.

“Give me your curriculum”, she said, resolutely, “I’ll suck up to the HR.”

He actually smirked, and pulled his resume out from his bag, handing in to her.

“Thank you. Truly.”

“It’s nothing”, she brushed it off, putting the resume in her purse. “That’s what friends are for.”

The waiter came back with their orders, and Eddard realized that Ashara was probably the person whom he had most easily befriended.

It was nice to be friends.

 

The church was illuminated only by candles and the smell of incense impregnated the whole room.

Ashara tried hard to focus on the ceremony, but she found it very hard. She began to wander and drift off at the words of the priest, and she felt guilty and slightly content at ‘misbehaving’.

Eddard, though, looked straight ahead to the altar, and when it came the time for the congregation to sing the hymns, he didn’t shy away.

Ashara watched in silence as Elia held the baby whose forehead was washed in holy water.

“ _Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself…_ ”

Elia handed her godson Jon back to Lyanna, who giggled and hugged the godmother.

Ashara watched in silence later in the obligatory post-baptism barbecue as Elia and Lyanna, the horrible, sadistic minds that they were, seated her next to Eddard.

Ashara saw their little smug grins and glared at them, saying nothing in return that would add fuel to the fire.

“So”, Eddard started, blissfully unaware of the machinations of Elia and Lyanna, “you weren’t raised a Catholic, were you?”

 _This is going to be a_ long _barbecue,_ Ashara thought.

“No, uh… I never had a religion. But Elia is a Catholic”, Ashara offered.

“Oh”, Eddard stated. “My family is… Well. You know.”

“Yes, given the nature of today’s ceremony”, she snickered. “But are you, and by ‘you’, I mean ‘you, Eddard’, religious?”

He looked at her sideways. “Yes.”

That wasn’t what she was expecting.

“Oh. Cool.”

He arched both eyebrows, expecting her to elaborate.

“I’m sorry”, she smiled a bit uncomfortably, “I must have come off as arrogant. What I mean is that religion isn’t exactly part of my life, but I think it’s sweet for you to keep your faith.”

He turned further in his chair to face her completely.

“Sweet?”

She cringed, realizing what she had just said.

“I’m sorry again. That was condescending.”

The corners of his lips turned upwards. He seemed amused.

“Don’t bother. I know you’re above all of this.”

She became flustered.

Ashara never got flustered.

“I’m not…! I’m not above or below anything!”

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, trying to suppress a smile from his face, and she realized he was _joking._

Rather than brushing it off, though, Ashara recomposed and smiled apologetically, taking it in stride.

“You really struck a chord with me”, she admitted. “Perhaps, deep down, I thought those things you said… Because I always pride myself in having a _scientific_ mind, as if I were the _crème de la crème_ just because I’m good with numbers… Maybe my liberal mind isn’t so liberal after all.”

He chuckled. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. There isn’t anything wrong with not having a religion and being happy just to believe in Science. I’d just like to show that it’s possible to do both of these things”, Eddard said calmly. “I know I do.”

Ashara grinned brilliantly, and it was a vision to him. “Eddard Stark, you’re one of a kind”, she said, and, when he got up to fetch them more drinks, she could still see Elia and Lyanna giggling at her situation.

 _Idiots,_ she thought to herself, but then she couldn’t stop a smile from showing on her lips in gratitude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy that I managed to post this chapter just one week after the last time. I'm so prolific.  
> So, the issue between Elia and Cersei was heavily inspired on the shows "Feud: Bette and Joan" and "HBO's Big Little Lies". I also borrowed some lines from them, but I won't say which ones, because that would be too spoilerific. They are both AMAZING shows, I highly recommend them for anyone who's interested.  
> So, what did you think? :D


	7. Of togetherness and fugitives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia learns new kinds of knowledge and Ashara proves her loyalty.

“Mr. Selmy, can I talk to ya for a second, please?” Ashara smiled fondly when Mr. Selmy looked up from his notebook to face her.

“Of course, my dear. Shall we discuss it during lunch?”

Ashara nodded, showing him the sandwiches she had brought him.

Mr. Barristan Selmy was her boss. His work always achieved excellence, and the man himself was a very honourable person. He didn’t have a family, and always prioritized work over his personal life. This led to him being a very dedicated man, on top of being the nicest boss Ashara ever had.

Ashara was his favourite out of all his employees, and he didn’t bother to hide his predilection.

She also knew that he had feelings for her, but he was too much of a gentleman to act on them. He kept those feelings to himself and took care to never make Ashara uncomfortable by any means. She was, after all, his employee, and putting her in an embarrassing position such as her boss making a pass at her wasn’t something that agreed with Mr. Selmy’s character.

But they still had a close friendship, and Ashara figured that the least she could do would be to indulge his fantasies, if only a little bit, so she made him sandwiches everyday (sometimes he got too caught up in work and forgot to actually eat) and they used to share their lunch break.

“So, what is it? Troubles with the licensing?” He asked her, setting down his worn-out Nokia phone and grabbing the sandwich.

“No, the licensing is doing well, I just think that there’s a couple of problems with some of the RTCR provisions, but I’ll check that with Hightower later.”

Barristan huffed. “Are we still in this stage of dealing with coliforms?”

“I’m afraid so”, Ashara frowned in disapproval. “Connington left a mess of things.”

“That’s an understatement”, Selmy chuckled, but not happily. “And how’s Hightower doing?”

Ashara smiled. “He’s great. Much better than the last chief.”

“I thought so too. Good man.” Selmy noted, and then he eyed her knowingly. “What is it you wanted to discuss?”

“Uh”, she perched uncomfortably on her seat, getting worked up because of no reason. “Actually, I wanted to suggest someone to Jon Arryn’s department.”

“Jon Arryn? You mean, the guys from electric?”

“Yeah… I thought it would be impertinent for me to talk to him.”

Barristan smiled in amusement. “So, you thought to talk to me so I could ask him this?”

Ashara grinned suggestively, and Barristan laughed at her silliness.

“Who’s this person? Is it a he or a she?”

“It’s a he”, Ashara tried hard not to blush, but in her mind, Mr. Selmy had just asked her if she would like to run away with _him_ on a unicorn, “I think he’s the right person for this job.”

“Do you have his resume there?”

“Yes”, she took the paper from her purse and handed it over. “He used to work for Baelor Engineering.”

Mr. Selmy frowned.

“He's lost his job”, she spoke in a low tone.

“Yes. I used to know some people who worked there too”, Mr. Selmy said, and he seemed to look straight through her, far away. “What a shame”, he lamented later, and a look of genuine disappointment flashed across his face.

“But he didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, I think he’s brilliant. I read his PhD, and I thought that it was well-written, and the method was also good.” Ashara didn’t say that she had searched the ninth layer of the deep web to find it. “He’s intelligent, and hardworking, and there would never be a problem with his ego or anything like that”, Ashara said, and she noticed that her praise was a bit over the top, but Mr. Selmy needed to be convinced, and so acting like a salesclerk in order to help out a friend in need wasn’t that hard.

“He sounds like a good guy”, Mr. Selmy said, and, if he thought anything about the exact nature of the relationship between Ashara and her guy, he didn’t say anything. “I’ll talk to Jon Arryn.”

Ashara could have very well given backflips around the courtyard.

Eddard would get the job. They could catch the subway in the morning, and talk about work and people they didn’t like, and then share their lunch break, talk about movies and TV, or news and politics… Get to know each other. She had a feeling that they were going to be friends, and she smiled all day thinking about it.

 

It was a Sunday afternoon, and Elia asked her to go to Lyanna’s house with her and Arthur. They needed to see how Lya was faring with Jon, but Ashara had dirtier, ulterior motives to be there.

“Hey”, Ashara said breathlessly.

“Hey”, Eddard answered back, too wonderstruck to smile.

“Eddard...”, she started, looking at the ground.

“Ned.” He interrupted her.

“What?”

“It’s, it’s Ned. My friends call me Ned. I should have said it to you sooner.”

“Okay, Ned”, Ashara smiled, and she asked herself how on Earth he couldn’t see everything that was going through her mind when she grinned.

“Ashara”, he called, and it came from deep within. “They told me that someone had appointed me to the job... I know it was you, and I can’t tell you how truly grateful I am”, he couldn’t even move closer to her.

“Your resume got you the job, because you deserved it. It wasn’t me”, she replied demurely, but he wouldn’t have it.

“No, I give credit where it’s due”, he said firmly. “You were a friend to me, when I needed it. Thank you.”

Ashara was braver than she thought she were, and she edged closer to him, enjoyed the way his eyes sweeped the space between them (they weren’t cold at all), and she whispered “Whenever you need it”.

She kissed his cheek, put her hands on his shoulders and became warm with the closeness.

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and their noses were only inches apart, so much so that they could feel each other’s breath in the air.

Jon’s cry echoed in the room, and the four walls felt too small.

“Excuse me, please”, he said, brushing past Ashara, already lamenting the loss of warmth in his body.

Ashara watched him go, not infinitely sad at this development. Yeah, they were cock-blocked, but it happened, unfortunately, and what mattered was that Ned seemed as into her as she was into him, and she couldn’t stop herself from giggling.

It was another voice that pulled her back to the present.

“Hey”, Brandon Stark said, and he sounded strange. “Ashara is your name, right?”

“Yeah, nice to meet you”, she said back, extended her hand for him to shake, and was surprised when he altogether ignored it and just went in to kiss her cheek instead.

“You’re Ned’s friend?” He asked, eyeing her curiously.

“Yeah. I’m friends with Elia Martell, you know? That’s how I met your brother. We just, we were talking about work”, Ashara explained, and she hoped that she didn’t sound too airy to him. Her interaction with his brother still had her shook.

“My brother is unemployed”, Brandon said bluntly.

“Not anymore”, Ashara smiled happily. “He got hired by the company I work for.”

“When was that?” He frowned.

“Just today”, she said, a bit awkwardly.

“Oh. Cool. I’ll talk to Ned now.”

They got out of the room and went into the kitchen, where Lyanna was cooking dinner for everyone, but Ashara had that weird feeling that someone was watching her, and, when she turned around to check it, she saw that it was Brandon, staring at her with a wolfish look.

The hairs at the nape of her neck stood up.

When Ashara relayed that account to Elia in Jon’s room later (Lyanna and Ned were doing the dishes, Brandon was watching TV and little Benjen was studying in his room), Elia frowned, condemned Brandon by saying what a creep he was, and warned Ashara to stay away from him.

“You sound like my mother”, Ashara laughed, sipping her beer.

“I mean it”, Elia admonished her, hissing but taking care not to wake up the baby. “From what you’re telling me, this guy sounds off... I know he’s Lya’s brother, but you never really know people, right? Besides, if he isn’t dangerous, he could be just a bad influence to you.”

“Elia, I think I am the worst influence to anyone”, Ashara laughed. “But I know what you’re saying. I’ll keep my distance from him. He’s so different from Ned!”

Ashara immediately realized her faux pas, and her deepest desire was to clamp her mouth shut.

“ _Ned?_ ”, Elia repeated incredulously. “ _Eddard?_ ”

“Crap.”

“I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I SWEAR”, Elia’s squealing was interrupted by a cushion thrown at her, and then later she laughed endlessly as the shameless Ashara retreated in mortification. 

“You’re one to talk! You and Arthur are practically eye-fucking! Just do it already!” Ashara tried to shame Elia in return, but it was all to no avail, because Elia continued to laugh at her expense.

“Nothing you might say will take this moment away from me”, Elia smirked, and even Ashara cracked a smile.

“I really like him”, Ashara confessed, and that was the best thing ever. For all her scandalous façade, Ashara kept things to herself all too often, and just saying what was in her heart to Elia made her lighter.

“I know”, Elia smiled gently, and of course she knew. She knew everything about Ashara. “And Ashara, I am so, so happy for you. You deserve to be happy.”

“But I am happy, regardless of being with him or not. It’s strange, because he’s the person I’ve liked the most in my entire life, and I’m not exaggerating. He’s honourable, and kind, and handsome in his own way, and a lot of other things... But I can take it or leave it, you know? Because I know that I’ll be alright regardless. For once, it doesn’t feel like I _need_ someone, it just feels like... Like I really like him”, and she grinned coquettishly.

Elia realized that Ashara had grown up and gotten far wiser than her thirteen-year-old self, but there was still a trace of that young girl that was innocent and carefree.

“And Elia”, Ashara added, “If you want to get together with Arthur, you have my blessing. Just don’t break up, okay? I don’t want awkward family reunions.”

Elia laughed, and kicked Ashara in the leg.

Ashara winked at Elia, smirked and left her in the Stark condo to do what she had to do.

 

“Come on, you little rabbit”, Lyanna spoke, ushering small baby Jon awake. “Say hi to your godmother.”

Elia felt all nervous and jittery to hold the baby.

“Hey, baby”, Elia said softly, and the boy opened his eyes to stare back at her. His eyes were incredibly grey, the exact same shade as Lyanna’s.

“He looks just like you”, Elia noted wondrously.

“He’s the living picture of Ned, actually”, Lyanna said, clearly proud.

“Yeah, I can see the similarities”, Elia answered, noting the common traces among the Stark family members. “And how are you getting along with him?” 

“I’m tired”, Lyanna smiled, and Elia saw the dark circles under the girl’s eyes. She seemed to have aged fifteen years in the last months. “Baby cries all night… It’s funny, he only calms down when Ned picks him up. I guess I’m too restless for him.”

“Nah, don’t say that. It’s probably just your anxieties showing. I’m sure that baby loves you”, Elia giggled, and marvelled at how Jon made himself comfortable in her arms.

“He’s my whole life”, Lyanna declared, and it was said with such calm conviction that Elia became instantly happy at hearing that.

“How’s Rhaegar? Is he helping you?”

Lyanna looked away and nodded silently.

“He’s helping me to pay the bills, and he comes to see Jon on weekends. I think he’s really trying, Elia”, Lyanna said, almost apologetically, but Elia waved her concerns off.

“I don’t want to fight with him again. I’m very happy that he’s fulfilling his obligations, believe me or not. We all want the best for Jon”, Elia reaffirmed, rocking Jon and thinking at how lucky that babe was.  

“I think you should do that too.”

“What?” Elia asked curiously.

“Become a mother. I think you’ve got the hang of it.”

Elia smiled at the possibility.

With the passing of time, she felt that, too.

She wasn’t like Ashara, happy solely with a career. Elia always felt the need to build relationships and connect.

She wanted to have children, and that became clear to her from that moment on.

Elia saw Arthur leaning against the doorway, with his combed hair and old pair of tennis, and she felt it in her heart that he wanted a future with her.

When baby Jon smiled in giddiness, she accompanied him.

 

Ashara was shook out of her reverie when her phone buzzed.

She let go of the report she wasn’t writing and looked at the phone screen.

_NOO GOD! NO. GOD. PLEASE. NO. NO!!! NO!!! NOOOOOO!!!_

“What is it, Oberyn?” She aggressively whispered, as if the mere voice of said individual would be enough to cause a hurricane in her office.

“What up, Ashara?”

She could just see the corner of his lips maliciously turning up.

“I’m fine, and you?”

“I’m actually at the entrance of your company. Come pick me up. We need to talk.”

Something about the serious manner in which he said that made it clear to Ashara that this wasn’t the Oberyn that once ran naked around her backyard when he was fifteen and had had a little too much to drink.

“I’ll be there in just a moment.”

She strode to the main gate and waved at the guards, telling them to let Oberyn in.

“Hey”, he kissed her cheek, and she felt the rasp of his beard. He hadn’t shaved. “Can we talk?”

“Sure”, she answered, signalling for him to follow her. “Come into my office.”

As soon as they got there, Oberyn was quick to look around the hallway and close her door.

“You’re scaring me”, she tried to crack a joke, but there was truth in her words.

“You know about the operation in Flea Bottom?”

“I heard about it on the news, why?”

Oberyn looked at her warily, and then removed the jacket from his waist and lifted up his shirt to show her his stomach.

“Jesus Christ!” Ashara jumped from her seat, and didn’t even hear the sound of her chair falling to the floor. “You’re bleeding, Oberyn!”

“Shh, be quiet”, he whispered, gesturing for her to sit down, which she didn’t. “The bullet just caused a scrape, it didn’t get in. I ran and came to you.”

Ashara went to his side and lifted his shirt to get a good look at his body, looking for injuries.

Thankfully, what Oberyn said was true. There was just a small amount of blood and no holes – Ashara figured he had probably cleaned himself. The blood stained Oberyn’s white shirt, but the jacket that he tied around the waist hid it from view.

“What the fuck happened?”

He held her hand, as if to soften the blow.

“I did something bad.”

 

It all happened so fast, and yet so fully.

Arthur drove Elia down to her small apartment in a lift, and, this time, he got out of the car too, and he kissed her against the door of her home, and it was so good that she forgot to actually open the door for a moment, but then when they both got in, it escalated to a rate she wasn’t used to, which wasn’t bad at all.

It felt like coming home after getting caught in the rain, as clichéd as it might sound. Perhaps love was just a big cliché.  

“Dude, I’m so glad I found you”, she said sincerely, laughing against his bare chest.

“Remember when you broke up with Rhaegar?” He asked her, and she stared at his violet eyes, entangling her feet with his, nodding.

“I actually went to my room and celebrated for a whole two hours”, he snickered. “Does that make me a horrible person?”

“I’m actually glad”, she confessed. “So, when did you decide you liked me?”

“I didn’t know you were so clingy”, she snorted indignantly, he chuckled, “I won’t pretend that there was a specific moment in time in which I looked at you and thought ‘O Elia, o Elia, wherefore art thou, Elia?’”, she slapped him playfully, “…It was more of an evolution… I just realized that I liked you when it was too late to quit”, he admitted with a dashing smile, kissing the top of her forehead, perfectly satisfied with his boring simplicity, and Elia thought that having him as a strong tree, splendid in his constancy, was worth a thousand times more than having a relationship built solely on passion.

Strong trees didn’t bend to wind, rain or snow, and its’ trunks lasted even after fire.

Elia laid on top of Arthur’s chest, and she admired everything him.

“I’m sorry, I have to pick up this call”, Arthur said apologetically and reached for his phone. “Allen?”

Elia didn’t even realize what was happening until Arthur leapt out of the bed and turned on her TV with shaking hands.

The photos of both Oberyn and Ashara were splashed across the news.

 

“Is there someone you want to say goodbye to?” Oberyn asked Ashara, putting on his helmet.

Ashara thought of her brothers, of Elia and Eddard…

“I’m good”, she said, with watering eyes, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. She put on her helmet, held on to Oberyn as he reared up the engine of his motorcycle, and disappeared into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got unexpectedly big. I'm sorry, guys.  
> The thing is, my notebook died (RIP Pancracio) and now I have to surreptitiously borrow other people's notebooks to write and post this. You see, writing smut on other people's notebooks isn't one of my main goals in life, so the smut is POSTPONED until Pancracio resurrects.  
> Also, I'm sorry for pushing this weird thriller plot, but it's something I've been DYING to do. It's gonna get good, I swear. And I mean, Oberyn as a cop? P L E A S E N A R C O S  
> Next chapter will also feature the return of Cersei, who was absent in this one chapter, but will be back soon to make our lives happier.  
> Your comments on the last chapters were so incredibly sweet, I feel like squeezing all of your cheeks <3


	8. Of injustice and loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia tries her best to solve things and Ashara goes through suffocating moments.

Doran hadn’t slept in days. Not really. Laying down was too haphazard a task, and it brought only more worry that crept up in the dead of night.

Doran tried to think collectedly, do things carefully, but even he was disconcerted for a moment when he heard the news. For a moment, he didn’t feel in control, he felt what other people said he was – _feeble,_ weak, useless.

Oberyn disappeared, and, by the looks of the footage displayed on the TV, he had taken Ashara Dayne with him.

The uncertainty of what had become of them, of why they were even being chased left their respective families in a desperate frenzy.

Only Doran wasn’t despairing. He did everything in his power to remediate, to try to adjust –  

Who was he fooling? Wait –

No, he was calm. After some fifteen minutes of being dumbfounded, Doran splashed cold water on his face, breathed deep and started to think.

He always had to be the cold-blooded one. Oberyn was quick to anger, slow to forgive, and careless in his unpredictability. _I always warned him that someday his fury would be the death of him._

Now all his warnings seemed to have been at the same time extremely necessary, not effective enough and altogether useless.

Oberyn didn’t weigh matters like he did. Oberyn fought, independently of the opponent, for the fight itself; while Doran only fought when victory was already assured. Doran wouldn’t ever run like Oberyn had.

Doran closed his eyes for a second.

_Don’t go yet, brother. It’s too soon for you to go._

Just two weeks before, Oberyn had showed up at his door, grinning as ever. He had sat on Doran’s couch against the window, and when the sun rays came in, Doran distinctly remembered Oberyn enveloped in sunshine, with a halo over his head. Oberyn laughed and teased Doran for being a bore, too quiet, too passive… Doran just sighed at Oberyn’s foolishness.

Elia would be staying over. Good. He needed his sister close to him at a time like this, but he thought that she needed him even more.

When Elia left to go to the police station again (they took turns), the phone bell rang.

Doran flew to the phone with a speed he didn’t know he possessed.

“Hello”, he panted.

“Doran”, a whisper came from the other end.

It wasn’t his brother.

_Ashara._

“Who is it?” He asked, not saying her name, in case they were being heard. He didn’t know.

“It’s Ashara”, she said at last. “Don’t worry, I’m calling from a private number”, he looked at the receiver and it was true, the number was unidentified. “Listen. I’m calling you because you’re the smartest one. You won’t do anything rash, right?”

“I won’t”, he swore, but there were other questions he wanted to ask her, where was his–

“Oberyn and I are well”, she said quietly, as if reading his thoughts. “He’s sleeping right now. He wouldn’t let me call you, but you need to know.”

“Know what?”

“I’ll tell everything from the start, so listen quietly. Oberyn was in that – that ghastly operation in Flea Bottom, and he saw something he wasn’t supposed to. The policemen – the policemen were _with_ the mafia, and instead of arresting them, the policemen accepted –“, Ashara was struggling to whisper things silently, “the policemen accepted cash that the mafia gave them. Oberyn saw it from afar, and he took a few pictures of it with his phone, but they saw him, and – Doran, they shot your brother.”

Doran’s eyes bulged, and he made an abnormal effort to remain quiet.

“The bullet didn’t get in, though. You have your God to thank for that. But they saw him nonetheless, and they were chasing him actively. Oberyn came to me in my company, we thought I could hide him in my house, no one would think of looking for him over there, but when we were on the street someone – I don’t know who, or how! – someone pulled a gun out of nowhere and started to fire shots, and Oberyn knew that he was in danger. Now they already knew I was with him, so I had to go on the run too.”

“Where are you now?”

“I can’t tell you. I’m scared, Doran”, Ashara’s voice started to tremble, and Doran sensed she was on the verge of tears. “Oberyn won’t tell me any names in case they get us – he said that they could torture me to figure what I know, and it would be best if I didn’t know the names – but I’m really scared, Doran”, and, just like that, Ashara was weeping. “Your brother, he said that he would keep me safe. He said that nothing would happen to me while he was alive, that he would die before anything happened to me, but I’m, _I’m really scared_ ”, she managed to say, probably not aware of how she kept repeating that.

Doran squeezed the bridge of his nose, thinking.

“What is Oberyn’s plan? You have to tell me where you are.”

“I can’t. We don’t know who’s clean on the inside. Our plan is to go to the UN, or some embassy, someone who can give political asylum and then blow the whistle, but it’s getting hard to drive. The fucking news already showed us on the motorcycle, we need another way to go. We already thought about calling a taxi, but the police is searching the vehicles. We’re trapped.”

“You have to send the pictures to the newspapers _now._ Explain the whole case to the media. I expect that the case will blow up, the same way as it has now, and then, and _only_ then, you’ll turn yourselves in. There’ll be dozens of lawyers to assure that you’ll be treated well, and an armed escort.”

“Do you think we’ll be arrested?” Ashara elicited a quiet, almost inaudible sob.

“No. You haven’t committed any crime. At best, you’ll be admitted into the witness protection program. The people who did this to you”, Doran paused for a second, attempting to lessen the anger in his tone, “will answer for their crimes.”

Doran heard steps on the other end.

“Oberyn woke up”, Ashara said hurriedly. “I have to turn off. Tell Elia I love her.”

And, before Doran could say anything else, she hung up the call.

A wave of sympathy overtook Doran when Ashara spoke about Elia. Doran knew Ashara was loyal to his family as if it were her own, to the point of building her life around Elia and abandoning that very same life for Elia’s brother, simply because he needed it and he was her friend.

God bless Ashara Dayne and her faithfulness.

 

Ned sat on his tidy bed, already having finished that day’s tasks, but he didn’t turn off the lights just yet.

“Please”, he muttered, with a raspy voice, closed palms, “I am not trying to bargain. I know You have every right to do as You please, but if I have ever done something good in my life, please keep her safe”.

 _Give her the courage to do what is right, even if she doesn’t know what that is_ , he added to himself, closing his eyes.

_Come back to me._

 

Elia was at the police station with Arthur and Allen, and she was losing her temper.

“This is ridiculous!” Elia let out, widening her eyes. “The police is searching for two people without charges?”

“Madam, your brother is a cop who got involved in a serious fight. He has to answer some questions.”

“On what claim? On what _evidence?_ ”

“The wounded cops…”

“How do you know it was _him?_ ”

“We don’t know”, the officer said tersely, gritting his teeth, staring Elia down. “That’s why he has to give his testimony.”

“This sounds like a prosecution!”, Elia almost shouted. “What about the girl? Ashara, yes? Just in case you don’t remember her name, which has been smeared across every possible news channel by information that this station leaked.”

“She’s an accomplice to a suspect”, the officer shrugged in nonchalance.

Elia was tempted to jump at the man’s throat for speaking about Ashara like that.

Elia was already enraged at what the news channels were saying about her friend. Apparently, the fact that Ashara was a beautiful woman on the run was reason enough for the media to search her personal life and publicize it as if it were entertainment. They were speaking about Ashara’s clothes and creating myths around her behaviour, calling her ‘Bonnie’ to Oberyn’s ‘Clyde’.

Everyone seemed to forget that Ashara and Oberyn hadn’t been tried, and, for all effects, were innocent until proven guilty.

Elia looked around the crowded room, at the journalists fighting their way into the station, at the camera flashes going on and on, and thought with tears in her eyes that Ashara and Oberyn had already been tried and lost before they even started.

Hopelessness and dread settled in her stomach.

_What kind of justice is this?_

Allen took her place in trying to extract information from the officers and Elia accepted Arthur’s warm embrace, but even he couldn’t say that everything was going to be fine.

Elia wouldn’t give up hope yet, however grim things seemed to be in that moment.

She picked up her phone and dialled her boss’s number, asked for advice, then more lawyers, and so on, on a never-ending cycle…

It was then that Cersei Lannister entered the station with her hair tied back and dark sunglasses.

“Excuse me”, she said, and Elia couldn’t see Cersei’s eyes through the glasses, but she could feel Cersei’s hard glare at the police officer, “I have information about the Martell case.”

 

“Oberyn”, Ashara called meekly, staring at him lying on the bed in pain. “We should go to the hospital.”

“It’s just a stomach ache”, he said crisply, leaving no room for discussion.

“You’re bleeding again.”

“I said I’m fine!” He answered somewhat irritably.

Ashara would have scoffed at this action in a normal state, but now she wasn’t that strong anymore, and she whimpered, then full on cried.

Oberyn immediately got up from the bed and held her tight, feeling instantly guilty.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that”, Oberyn cooed, “I’m just nervous.”

He was much taller and larger than her now, no longer the little boy he once had been. It was unfamiliar and scary, but it also felt safe.

He had literally shielded her against a bullet storm, and so would never be Elia’s little brother again.

“I want to go home”, Ashara asked, and she didn’t care if she sounded like a wimp. She missed waking up everyday and knowing where to go, and walking safely down the street, and not having to calculate her steps with a head full of paranoia, unafraid of being shot –

“Me too”, Oberyn admitted, stroking her hair with a tenderness that she thought he should be incapable of possessing on such dire circumstances.

After a solid two minutes of silence, she spoke again.

“You were always stupid.”

He chuckled. “You weren’t complaining when you were sixteen.”

Ashara let Oberyn turn off the lights and she turned to lay on her side of the single bed, and him to his own, but she knew that they wouldn’t sleep so soon: they were having that conversation now.

“Ashara”, Oberyn called again, facing the wall. “Remember when you were sixteen?”

“Yeah”, she almost chuckled, thinking of a time when things were infinitely easier.

“I had a silly crush on you”, Oberyn confessed matter-of-factly.

“I know”, she said back, and it was true. Oberyn wasn’t very guarded with his feelings.

He turned and smiled at her, and it was as bashful as Oberyn could be, before he turned to the wall again.  

“And now I’ve managed to ruin your life”, he said silently, and, although he said it to her, she believed that it was directed to himself.

Ashara got up on the bed and grabbed his shoulders.

“Oberyn”, she said seriously. “You aren’t to blame for this. I made my choice when I let you hide in my house. It’s not our fault we’re here. Do you hear me? It’s not our fault”, she said fiercely, and once more Oberyn hugged her, this time, around her middle.

She weaved her fingers through his thoroughly dark hair in a comforting way.

He was a cop, he could lift her in his arms effortlessly, but now he seemed strangely vulnerable.

Ashara understood that he had bared himself before her. He was showing her his real state, and it wasn’t a pretty picture.

He was so, so tired. 

“They will find us”, she whispered, “you know it. And when it happens, it has to be on our own terms.”

He looked up at her, and stared deep inside her eyes.

They had had this discussion before, but Oberyn hadn’t been as exhausted.

His shoulders sagged in defeat.

“Okay”, he conceded at last, grabbed his phone and pressed ‘send’.

It was done now, for better or for worse.

Immediately afterwards, he recklessly tossed the phone against the mattress and breathed deep.

“Now we wait”, he declared, throwing himself against Ashara, hugging her with all the sadness, despair and relief that he felt.

“It’s going to be alright now, darling”, Ashara said, holding his battered body, although she didn’t know if the words were true.

Oberyn sat down on the floor and took Ashara with him, holding her against his chest.

Those were the most torturing minutes of their entire lifetimes.

“Tell me”, Ashara said, trying to divert his attention to better places, “why did you have a crush on me?”

“You were gorgeous at sixteen”, he quickly caught up with her intentions.

“Just at sixteen?”, she said, half indignantly and half flirty.

“No, even now”, he chuckled.

“I have an almost boyfriend, you know”, she felt her girlish talk come back, and it was a welcome surprise that she was still able to say things like that.

“Who’s him?”

“You know him. It’s Lyanna’s brother, Ned. Not the oldest one, that one’s lame. The middle brother.”

“I know him”, Oberyn recalled. “He’s cute”, he said suggestively.

“Don’t steal him from me, you man-whore”, and there was an edge of truth to her warning. Oberyn was just like that.

“Stop slut-shaming me”, he said in turn, playfully nudging her forearm.

“Okay, I’m sorry”, aware that he was joking but apologizing nonetheless, still maintaining a smile on her face, driving all thoughts that Ned wouldn’t want her anymore away from her mind. “We could try a polyamorous relationship, you know.”

Ashara expected him to scoff, but instead he said, “Wouldn’t that be nice?”, and then he remained silent.

They held tightly to each other all night long, consumed by a tribal and overwhelming feeling that they were the last ones on the planet.

They were only separated when the police arrived.

Then, Ashara’s world was muted down and put in slow motion. She lost herself in a daze of people holding her arms, putting flashlights against her face, forcing her to walk, telling her things she didn’t understand in a million different voices, people surrounding poor Oberyn even more…

Her confusion was only broken when Ashara saw her saviour in the crowd.

“ _Elia!_ ”, Ashara shouted out loud, and, before she knew it, she was being crushed against Elia’s chest in their strongest hug ever.

“Elia, Elia”, Ashara couldn’t stop repeating her name, “I was so scared!”, she almost yelled, feeling her voice become strained with tears, “I thought I would never see you again!”, Ashara confessed, looking up to see Elia’s face in flesh before her.

Elia’s tears streaked down her face, and she didn’t try to hide it. “Silly girl, did you really think I wouldn’t find you?”

Ashara sobbed against Elia’s chest again, not able to stop the emotions from arising.

“My dear”, Elia rubbed Ashara’s back, happy beyond words for being able to do that simple gesture again. Elia kissed Ashara’s temple and promised to meet her when they got to the police station again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really hard to write. A couple of weeks ago, I lost myself in the ghetto and Jesus, was I scared. This kinda compelled me to write this heavier piece, but don't worry, I'm going back to the fluff and humor <3  
> Thanks everyone for the kudos and comments, you da best <3


	9. Of presents and memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia organizes a New Year's Eve party and Ashara has beginnings and endings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The rating went up. I WONDER WHY. 
> 
>  
> 
> Now seriously, there's sex in this chapter (I can't believe I wrote smut on my mum's laptop). It's ugh, I'm blushing a deep shade of crimson right now.  
> I hope you all enjoy this chapter! It was a very difficult one to write, but I'm kinda happy about it :)  
> Again, thank you for your kindness and enthusiasm! I love reading/answering your comments :D  
> ALSO, HAPPY NEW YEAR! <3

Elia felt like hiring a crisis management company.

How did one handle a national scandal around one’s brother and best friend, a missed call from an ex whom one hadn’t seen in ages, and the preparations for a New Year’s Eve party, on top of the usual work assignments?

Never in her life had she committed the heresy of affirming that sleeping was overrated.

Of course, there wasn’t much she could do about the scandal. Apart from driving Oberyn and Ashara to courthouses and giving them The Best of Elia Martell’s Emotional Support, they were adults with lawyers. Besides, the worst part of the circumstance had already been dealt with, as Oberyn and Ashara were found safe and sound (or at least Elia thought).

Now, what freaked Elia out on that otherwise uneventful morning was a missed call from Rhaegar of all people. Elia actually wrote down the pros and cons of returning the call, and the item “ _I don’t want to call that asshole again because it would be horribly awkward_ ” eventually weighed down the most on her and she made the conscious decision to treat that like an isolated anomaly and pretend that the whole incident had never happened.

The preparations for the New Year’s Eve party were sailing smoothly. She bought vintage Edison lamp bulbs because they were hip and retro (never mind that even the characters from Downton Abbey thought that those were  _distasteful_ ), in addition to cheap drinks, because the deal was that everyone should bring their own expensive poison, and napkins, plastic cutlery, fake plants, a sound muffler for dogs (“ _Doran, what if someone actually brings their dog to the party? We’ve got to be PREPARED! No, I’m not being extra! Also, what does that mean?)_ , and   a perfect playlist on Spotify that went from Otis Redding to Taylor Swift.

Elia still felt little butterflies in her stomach when Arthur showed up at her door, pecked her lips casually and brought extra snacks for the party. She had completely forgotten about the snacks, and Elia convinced herself that, if it wasn’t for Arthur’s thoughtfulness, her guests would be all left to starve.

“Thanks, babe”, Elia grinned against his lips. “You’re a dear.”

“Don’t mind me. You’ve got shit to do”, he snorted playfully.

“Yeah, I do”, she agreed, entirely conscious of her (now thankfully shortened but still impendent) to-do list. “By the way, did you check on your sister?”

“She isn’t answering my texts”, Arthur frowned. “I hate it when people do that.”

“Go easy on her”, Elia bade him. “You know how she’s like…”

“Yeah, I know. She goes from hot to cold and cold to hot all too easily, all too quickly. I think she must be just laying down in her bed, too lazy to do anything, but she’ll get out of it eventually. I bet she’s coming to your party.”

Elia hummed contentedly as she polished the silverware and watched Arthur from the corner of her eye. He took the task of washing her dishes to himself.

“Also, am I on your to-do list?” He asked her with his cheeky grin, and she dropped the silverware, strolled halfway across the kitchen and splashed some cold water on his face, causing him to giggle. 

 

 

Ashara felt like walking upon a post-apocalyptic world.

It was as if everything was burning and crashing down around her, and yet she felt oddly numb.

Her email address was flooding with messages from her company saying that her employment was terminated, of Mr. Selmy gracefully asking what was going on, apart from emails from other colleagues, friends and people she didn’t even know.

The TV always went back to the case. It became something of a scandal and Ashara couldn’t even leave her own home now due to the journalists camping outside, so she inevitably resigned herself to the hypnotical task of watching the extended coverage.

 _“This morning, Agent Oberyn Martell delivered a list of cops who have or had illegal ties with the mafia in Flea Bottom. There are over a hundred confirmed names, all of which have been investigated by Agent Martell over the course of the last months. Two weeks ago, the mafia and several of the cops on the list started to chase after Agent Martell and his girlfriend, the engineer Ashara Dayne”_ , Ashara cringed,  _“…Both Martell and Dayne surrendered to the police earlier this week and were then cleared of all charges. The list is causing great controversy, as it uncovers the systemic scale of corruption inside the police. It is expected that the Chief of Security will resign, and an official statement from the White House should be released within the next few hours.”_

Ashara switched the channel and oh! Surprise! They were speaking about the case!

This time, it was a rounded table with people that seemed very  _intellectual._

 _“And you, ladies and gentlemen”,_ the moderator intervened,  _“what do you think about the Martell scandal?”_

A man tugged up his glasses and straightened up in his chair to speak. The subtitles said that he was chief editor of an important magazine.

_“I think that for every generation there’s a scandal that shakes the country to its core. There was Watergate, Lewinsky, Snowden, Spotlight… Now this. Of course, people already knew that the police is corrupt, but now there’s concrete evidence. There’s no way of knowing how far up this scandal goes for now, but at this rate, we’ll have to figure out a way of solving this problem as soon as possible.”_

_“What about the messengers? Oberyn Martell and Ashara Dayne?”_

_“There isn’t change without a scandal, and there isn’t a scandal without a whistle blower.”_

A renowned politician also chose to answer the question.

_“They are heroes, gifted with extreme courage. True American citizens.”_

Vomit.

_“I think that we, as a nation, should praise them both. Oberyn, for his diligence and bravery, and Ashara for her resilience and valour. They are ordinary people, and that should never be underestimated – the public trusts them.”_

The other channels were more of the same.

_“Those people should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”_

_“Ashara Dayne is the perfect role model for our girls. She is smart, successful and brave. She stood by her man during the toughest of times, and they shouted for freedom when they had to. Oberyn and Ashara are the modern Romeo and Juliet we all needed.”_

_“Talk about a power couple! A tough cop and a brilliant scientist prosecuted for telling the truth… Man, I’d vote them for the White House!”_

Ashara finally had enough of that. She turned off the TV, rubbed her eyes, stared at the bed she didn’t make.

Her house was a mess, and she didn’t feel like cleaning it just yet. Ashara procrastinated, looked at her phone, searched the web, read gay fanfiction, refreshed her Facebook, looked at some scientific articles, and then back at the news, watched useless videos on YouTube, and then saw her messages.

There was a text waiting for reply.

_Eddard Stark (12/16, 23h:47): Hey, are you okay? I’m worried. Please send news soon._

A part of Ashara smiled broadly and gazed blankly at the infinite in joy at seeing his text, but other parts pointed out to the fact that this was an old message that went without reply.

And those weren’t multiple texts. It was just one single text.

She thought that sending one simple message was too cold, even for Ned’s standards. She had gone through the biggest crisis in her entire life, got chased down by corrupt men, and everything Ned Stark did was send a stupid single text message asking for her  _well-being,_ as if everything would be okay in a short span of time if she could just behave normally and answer that  _yes,_ she was okay, pretending to herself that she wasn’t haunted by the sound of shots echoing in the pavilion.

It took Ashara three hours to come around and answer the damn text. She half wanted to kill Ned with her bare hands for being so cold, so distant it verged on cowardly when he obviously cared for her (or did he?), for not being fierier, for not showing her where his affections lied; Ashara also wanted to turn her back on him and look down on him from her pedestal, in order to repeat all sorts of mantras to herself, such as  _“Why don’t you tell me you want me, chicken?”_ ; but, most of all, and she kind of hated herself for it, Ashara wanted Ned.

She wanted him to come to her, hold her, tell her he loved her and that everything would be fine. She wanted him to fight for her as much as she fought for him, she wanted him to look out for her, to care for her, to figure her out, to devote his life to her, to absent-mindedly caress her Facebook profile pic with his thumb…

The realization wasn’t easy to face, and Ashara struggled with it for some time, but at the end of the day, she couldn’t contain herself.

_Ashara Dayne (12/30, 12:32): I’d like to go somewhere. Pick me up, please?_

The answer never came by text. Instead, Ashara’s eyes almost watered up when she saw Ned at her door, all flushed with the journalists’ undivided attention.

She couldn’t suppress a giggle at his shocked expression when a text showed up at his phone.

_Ashara Dayne (12/30, 13:15): I’m escaping through the bathroom window. Go to the back of the building._

She could recognize his lopsided almost smile even through the window glass.

_Eddard Stark (12/30, 13:15): Okay. Coming. That’s a Beatles song._

_Ashara Dayne (12/30, 13:16):_ She came in through the bathroom window?  _Good taste xx_

When Ashara finally saw Ned in the flesh again, away from prying eyes, he was smiling at her without most of his reservations, at the risk of looking silly. Ashara didn’t care. She noticed that his features were much benefitted whenever he smiled: his eyes seemed to light up and twinkle, even with their greyness embedded of sorrow, and his cheeks exhibited a light blush that was visible even behind the beard. For Ashara, it was hard to describe, but he seemed more alive than his usual self, and the thought that she was the cause behind his smile did things to her.

“Hey”, he said, hugging her, and she didn’t feel the slightest guilt at holding him a moment too long.

“How are you?”, he internally scoffed at his own question, because of course she wasn’t having a very nice day.

Ashara looked at the ground when she responded in a meek voice. “Can we go somewhere?”

“Sure”, he replied, and there was a hint of tenderness in his tone that didn’t went unmissed by Ashara.

An hour later, they were at the most obscure place to ever exist. The press would never find them there.

It was fifteen miles away from town. A pile of ruins near the woods called Winterfell.

The Starks used to spend holidays and weekends there, Ned told her, and he thought that it would be a good idea to stay there for a while (thankfully, the crack addicts had already moved somewhere else).

But Winterfell wasn’t just a hidden shelter. It was something of a museum of Ned’s better days.

Ned and Ashara sat on a bench overlooking the hills and the plants that were slowly hiding the broken walls of Winterfell from view.

“How’s Lya? Jon? Ben?”, Ashara asked, if only to make small talk. At this point, she would be glad just to talk about the weather, as long as it was with Ned.

“They’re all fine. It’s with you I’m worried about”, Ned replied with a frown devoid of judgment.

Ashara tore her eyes farther away from him and allowed herself to sigh softly in frustration when she thought of his reasons for being worried.

“I don’t know. My life has changed.”

The leaves were falling from the trees and the branches were shaken when the wind blew upon them.

Ned was silent for a long moment. The only sound was the rustling of leaves, and Ashara realized that Ned must have been going over what to say, in a way to determine the most appropriate answer.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Ashara knew him enough to be aware that there was more than just a simple question there. It was Ned’s way of inviting her to open up to him, not only on this matter.

She had played those games before, but then Ned wasn’t a player. Everything he said was genuine, never a product of rehearsed manners or cheap tricks. Whereas other people just flirted meaninglessly and irresponsibly, Ned made his advancements respecting every step of the way.

The gears inside Ashara’s mind turned, and it was then that she decided that Ned and her should go from close to intimate.

_Do you want to talk about it?_

“Yes and no… Sometimes I want to scream, sometimes I just want to forget about all this… Right now, though…”

“You don’t have to say anything to please me”, Ned was quick to add.

“I know, I’m just debating with myself. It’s just that… It all feels so useless”, she started to let the truth sink in. “Our daily struggles mean nothing in the face of the world. My job, everything that I work- worked for, that made my blood sing and my eyes tear up… Are nothing but remains now.”

Her shoulders trembled with the harshness of her own words, but she carried on.

“I always knew that I had a sheltered life, and then I was tossed into a lawless world. I don’t know how to feel about it.”

Ned gave one of his notorious almost smiles once again. Not a smile of joy, amusement or pleasure. A smile of memories tinged with sadness.

His eyes seemed glassy, perhaps a million miles away from her.

“I know”, Ned nodded, and this time he didn’t look away.

Ashara realized with some aggravation that Ned had already aged. He wasn’t one to simply pass through the years without being marked, hurt and humbled by the time.

When he spoke again, his voice was deep and rich.

“My parents used to call me and my siblings ‘sweet summer children’, and I never realized what that meant until I grew up. Because when you’re young, you’re as green as a summer child could be, but then winter comes… Suddenly you’re asking yourself if you can handle the seasons of your own life, if you’re strong enough to brave the storm… I find that the essential is to keep one’s principles in times of hardship, otherwise they wouldn’t be principles at all, only mere conveniences.”

Ashara studied Ned intently.

Amid the confusion that was her life right now and the sentiment of to be drifting along with the tide, Ned spoke to her in a way that resonated deep within.

“So, your advice is to keep fighting?”, Ashara asked with her mouth slightly agape.

He was adamant.

“Always. Never give up and never give in. We don’t really have any other choice.”

Ashara released a breath like there were no burdens on her shoulders. She splayed her bare feet on the grass near Ned’s feet. The tank top she was using made her breasts seem bigger, and she indeed felt like her chest was fuller. Her breath was scarce, and there were many things she wanted to say, but not one that could be correctly expressed with words, so she said nothing and alternated her stare between the blue sky and Ned’s impossibly grey eyes.

She curved her neck so that her face was near Ned’s shoulder. She could already feel his smell, and the proximity was stimulating. She was admiring the way his body was lean beneath his shirt. Regardless of her own feelings toward him, she had to recognize in a scientific manner that there was something very appealing about him. His body always looked healthy, hard, strong – handsome in his own way.

Ashara touched his shoulder with her own in the subtlest of contacts.

She was waiting for the instant in which he would bend down and seize the moment, but he didn’t do that.

Of course, he didn’t.

He just remained there in silence, and, when their eyes crossed, he moved his away a little too fast, but otherwise did nothing that could make the situation too uncomfortable.

Ashara noted humorously that he looked like a blushing maiden with her virtue all aflutter. Perhaps she could be his shining knight in white armour, the one who came to rescue the maiden.

The understanding slowly dawned upon her.

Ned had his limitations. He had a PhD and provided for his family, but he was still nervous around her. He stared at her from afar, sent short but calculated text messages and it took all his guts to drive to her house that day and bring her to Winterfell.

Ned had already done everything in his power to show her his feelings. He wouldn’t – couldn’t – tell her about the hushed prayers for her safety or the way he defended her at the company, because he wasn’t the sort – unlike the sickly-sweet boys from her youth who thought wonders of themselves and tried to impress her by saying how her eyes were pretty, as if she hadn’t heard that bullshit before. Ned was a man of few words and discreet gestures, someone that blushed too hard but meant well.

Someone that hoped to be understood.

Ned wasn’t ambitious. He was more than happy to lead a simple life. A simple life could be unremarkable, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be meaningful.

Ned had small dreams compared to other people she knew. Small dreams of the two of them, small dreams that kept him going on his day-to-day and sometimes robbed him of his sleep. Small dreams that he was trying to make come true.

She would have to help him, she realized. She would have to treat him with the kindness that he deserved and longed for, and doing so wasn’t a hard task. It came all too easily to Ashara.

Ashara found Ned’s hand pressed against the bench, and she tentatively touched his fingers, one by one, so as not to scare him away. She searched his face for any signs of discomfort, but found none. If only, he looked slightly perplexed.

Ned knew so much about life and honour, but was evidently out of his depth when a pretty girl gave him her exclusive attention. Ashara found it funny, then endearing, and so indescribably  _Ned_ that she came to love that fact, and prided herself in being the one that caused such an effect on a good and honest man such as him.

Ashara hoped that Ned could feel just as much as she was feeling, because the sensation was simply ecstatic.

It was novel, how the littlest touch sent an electric current through her spine to her brain, across the 1.5 million receptors beneath her skin transmitting several sensations to her nerve endings. Ashara could feel her neurotransmitters releasing dopamine and serotonin, the endorphin travelling to the limbic system of her brain, her cheeks acquiring colour, her lips getting rosy and her throat drying up.

Ashara really hoped Ned was as sensitive as her, because she was having a blast.

The intricate biochemistry behind her emotions was the most beautiful poetry she could’ve ever written.

On an impulse, Ashara fiddled with the little hairs at the nape of Ned’s neck and, when he was already too close to her so that the distance between their faces could no longer be considered merely friendly, Ashara gently pulled him down and touched his lips with her own.

Ashara immediately rejoiced at the feeling of his lips against hers, trying to memorize his texture, but then a short but urgent gasp from Ned made her pull away.

“I’m sorry”, Ashara said, not knowing why her confidence was waning. “Did I go too far?”

To her utter astonishment and delight, Ned vehemently shook his head and held her hand in his.

“No”, he replied with his voice thicker than usual.

Ned, quiet, shy Ned, stared at her with very dark eyes, and Ashara knew with absolute certainty in that moment that he wanted her, and she supressed a loud gasp upon the discovery.

Ashara had known when someone wanted her by looking them in the eye. She had seen eyes staring hungrily at her, and, even though those kinds of stares were always a prologue to physical pleasure, they were also devoid of intimacy, for they didn’t really contemplate her as anything other than a piece of meat.

However, when Ashara looked into Ned’s eyes, she saw many things swimming in his irises. There was desire, raw, sexual desire, but also adoration, reverie, happiness and perhaps something else too – she didn’t dare name it yet.

So, when Ned closed his eyes and bended his neck to kiss her, she fondly committed the image of his shut eyelids to her bank of memories.

It was initially just a long seal of lips. Ashara took it slow, savouring the moment. She also knew that Ned hadn’t done this very often, at least not as often as her, and she didn’t rush things with him.

She opened her mouth and made contact with her tongue, finding the way Ned quivered in her arms lovely.

It became something of a phenomenon to her, feeling him tremble. It happened when she unbuttoned his shirt and unzipped his pants with nimble fingers, when she got down on her knees and took him there, when he cupped her head in his hands and pulled her up to meet his lips again, when they eventually laid on the ground and again when he repeatedly thrust inside her.

She could feel whenever he hesitated or shuddered, and, every time it happened, she held him, whispered “I’m here” in his ear, to which he just buried himself further inside her, kissed her chest and caressed her stomach.

Elia always said that falling in love was like seeing new colours, but Ashara digressed. She already knew who she was. However, on that afternoon, Ashara thought to herself that, while she wasn’t seeing any new hues (she had seen them all already), she was letting Ned’s colours paint her, merging with her own, and perhaps there wasn’t anything more intimate than that.

The nature that drew them to one another was the same one that swallowed the grounds of Winterfell, and, suddenly, Ashara rediscovered the wonders of the world.

She held onto Ned’s naked body all afternoon, and she would keep holding onto him until the sunset. Ned was holding her inside his embrace, and, this time, he gave a full, bright smile. He pecked her cheek, stroked her upper arm and whispered “Thank you” over and over, because that was one of the happiest days of his life.

 

 

_Elia and Ashara were getting ready for a swinging party that would be held at a friend’s house. The friend’s parents were travelling, so the house was inevitably turned into a booze deposit._

_Elia chose long trousers and an orange tank top that made her figure seem slim, pretty. 70s fashion suited her. She also coiled her hair in a half ponytail, and put on big hoop earrings. When Elia looked at herself in the mirror, she was happy to feel beautiful and comfortable in her own skin. There was only one thing missing: her make-up._

_Elia didn’t know how to do it, she was just beginning to learn how to apply mascara, and so the task of applying Elia’s make-up was delegated to Ashara._

_Ashara was wearing a mini skirt, high heels, a white t-shirt and a hair tiara. She looked definitely stunning, Elia thought. Ashara put Pat Benatar on repeat and, laughing, started to apply Elia’s make-up._

_“I’m done”, she announced after some time. “You look so beautiful it’s making me jealous.”_

_Elia glanced at herself in the mirror and was taken aback when she realized just how much Ashara knew her. Her friend hadn’t overdone it and put on exaggerated eyeshadow. The result was pretty and subtle but still evident: just what Elia wanted._

_They made Doran take a lot of pictures of them and they could see his little smile at their silliness._

_It just felt extraordinarily good to be sixteen, feel pretty and go to a party with one’s best friend._

_Together, they walked a couple of blocs until they reached the party, arm in arm._

“Are all of you ready?” Ned asked wearily. Brandon had been fussing over his hair more than Lyanna, for God’s sake. Lya herself was ready, but was still organizing Jon’s toys, and Benjen – where the hell was Benjen?

Ned dropped to the couch in exasperation. They would be horribly late to Elia’s party.

“BENJEN!”, Ned bellowed from the couch.

“Gee, I’m ready”, Benjen answered in annoyance.

Ned took in Benjen’s appearance and cringed.

“Do you really have to wear the Black Sabbath shirt?” Ned was flustered.

Benjen shrugged nonchalantly.

“Isn’t it satanic?” Ned prodded.

“So is the New Year’s Eve celebration. Kinda. I think.”

Ned sighed reproachfully, but said nothing further. Benjen was still in his emo phase, and the best thing to be done about it was just to turn a blind eye to his edginess and wait until he came to his senses.

“Okay”, Ned allowed. “Sit there and don’t move. I’m getting everyone else here.”

He strode to Lya’s room in hurried steps, and, when he opened the door, he saw Lyanna fessing over Jon’s diapers.

“I’m sorry, Ned”, Lyanna said, looking at him from the corner of her eye. “Jon pooed.”

“Apart from that, are you ready?”

He looked at her, and saw that she was wearing nice clothes and shoes, but her hair was still wild, sticking up like a mane.

“Yeah”, she bristled in shame. “Just let me change Jon’s diapers and then we’ll go.”

“No”, Ned refused. “I’ll change the diapers. You can go and brush your hair. I know you like to do it carefully.”

Lyanna smiled adorably, rushed to Ned and enthusiastically hugged him.

Ned was taken aback at the sudden impact on his arms, but even so laughed at her eagerness.

“Thanks, Neddy”, she said, still a little girl.

“It’s nothing”, Ned answered fondly, briefly caressing her forehead. “Now go get yourself pretty.”

She grinned again and went to the bathroom, picking up her hairbrush and the little ornaments that she would put in her coiffure.

Ned looked at little Jon. Little Jon had the expression of a goldfish, with his wide eyes and agape mouth, seemingly on an everlasting state of bewilderment.

Ned chuckled. “You’re not a very witty babe, are you.”

Of course, little Jon didn’t respond, only twitched his hands. Ned picked him up, stretched him over a blanket, and opened his diapers.

“Ugh”, Ned clenched his nose. “Bad baby.”

Little Jon now sported a mockful expression on his face. The little bastard was enjoying this far too much.

Ned cleaned the baby, then discarded the messy diaper, replacing it for a new one.

Ned washed his hands, then playfully tapped his fingers on Jon’s belly, making the babe laugh.

He then dressed Jon in the clothes that Lyanna had chosen, adding a scarf because it was cold outside, tied Jon to a baby carrier and resigned himself to carry his nephew.

“Lya, are you ready now?”, he asked, distantly wondering if they would ever make it to the party.

“Yeah, can you just finish this braid?” Lya asked, turning around so he could see what he had to do.

“C’mere.” Ned made an effort to braid Lya’s hair with Jon in between them, and managed it.

Ned was no newbie in this. He had years’ worth of experience of braiding Lyanna’s tresses.

“There. You look absolutely fantastic”, he complimented her, glad to see her smiling.

“Thanks. You can give me the babe. Now go get Bran, we’ll be downstairs.”

Ned passed Jon to Lyanna and went in search of his older brother.

“BRANDON STARK!” Ned exclaimed exasperatedly when he came into Brandon’s room and saw that Brandon had undressed AGAIN. “We’re all waiting for you, prima donna!”

“Jesus, Ned! None of my clothes fit me anymore!”

“Even Lyanna has clothes that fit her, and she’s still recovering from the pregnancy. How come _you_ don’t have anything?”

“I worked out!”

“That’s not an excuse!”

Ned went to Bran’s wardrobe and, rummaging through the drawers, found a decent pair of pants and a nice, very macho, very Brandon-like shirt.

“Here”, he tossed the clothes toward Brandon’s way. “Dress this. It fits you, and I don’t care if they’re wrinkled, you should have ironed them sooner and I won’t do it now.”

Brandon mumbled something inaudible that sounded like a complaint but complied. His situation wasn’t exactly the most favourable one and he had to obey Ned, the most sensible one out of the two of them.

Ned stood with his feet rooted to the ground and watched Brandon get ready, tapping his foot impatiently to hurry Brandon up.

“I’m ready”, Brandon said, and the clothes did suit him. “Can I apply grease though? Do we have the time?”

Ned looked at his watch and cringed. “We haven’t got any time. And your hair is fine, grease would make you look like John Travolta and I think that’s something no one should aspire to, unless of course it’s a character party, which this is not. Just, just muss your hair a bit”, Ned messed it up a bit, and Brandon let him. “There. Dashing. Come on.”

Ned then made all of his family get into his car. They were finally on their way.

“By the way, Bran”, Ned spoke, from his place at the steering wheel, “why were you fussing over your clothes so much?”

“I wanted to impress someone at the party”, Bran admitted with a grumble, ignoring Lyanna’s mocking snickers and Benjen’s quiet grin.

“Who?”

“That friend of Elia’s, Ashara”, Brandon looked through the window as he answered it to avoid his family’s judgment.

Ned blushed a deep shade of crimson as he remembered just how Ashara liked him, and a part of him felt like howling with laughter, but he suppressed it for both his and his brother’s sake.

“Well”, he started, with a strangled voice. “About that.”

 

 

Elia found a moment of calm when no one was asking where the toilet was and sat by her brother’s side.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight”, Elia noted, studying Oberyn’s face to assert his reaction.

“I know. Don’t mind me, I’ll cheer up soon”, he smiled weakly at her.

Elia felt a rush of protectiveness toward Oberyn.

“We can call this whole thing off if you want to”, she offered, instantly forgetting all the time she spent making preparations. “I’ll send everyone home and we can watch rom coms on the TV.”

Oberyn smiled more openly than before. “You know me, I wouldn’t ever call off a party. Go have fun, Elia, you deserve it. I’ll just linger here for a moment, then I’ll try to get drunk.”

Elia accepted his proposition and went back to the party, leaving him to sulk alone.

She trusted him, even though he had difficulty in dealing with things that hurt him. She had no idea of what he had been through in the last few weeks, couldn’t even fathom the fear and disillusion, so, even though he hadn’t been himself lately, she knew he would come back to his ways eventually.

Oberyn was all fire: he was passionate and extreme, always setting everything around him in flames. Oberyn could be dangerous and even destructive, but what most people forgot about fire was that it had the power to renew and transform things.

Oberyn would come back, Elia was sure. In that sense, he was just like her and Doran: unbowed, unbent, unbroken.

As Ashara entered the party and Oberyn immediately snapped to attention to get up and greet her, Elia thought that she had heard that song before.

 

 

_Elia was dancing in the living room with some cute boy, so Ashara thought that it would be best to just leave them to it._

_She went to the kitchen and grabbed another glass of that cheap drink they were serving. She couldn’t bear the smell of it but tried to push it down her throat anyway, just for the hell of it._

_Oberyn appeared out of thin air with an eyebrow arched up at her._

_“I think you’ve had enough of that”, he said, taking the glass away from her and emptying it by himself._

_“Oi, grab your own drink”, Ashara all but snarled._

_Oberyn snickered. “You aren’t as weak as I thought you were.”_

_“You thinking about me often?” Ashara teased him, fully aware that Oberyn felt some weird sort of attraction for her._

_Oberyn just snickered in response, and perhaps it was the drink, perhaps it was Crimson and Clover playing in the background, or perhaps it was herself, but Ashara thought that Oberyn looked very_ sexy _that night._

_She didn’t even register what she was doing. It wasn’t exactly a thoughtful decision._

_“Oberyn, is there something in my eye?”, she shamelessly asked, closing her eyes, slightly parting her lips, edging closer to him._

_Oberyn snorted. He knew full well what she was about, and he went along with it._

_“Yeah, I think there’s a bit of glitter in there…”, he feigned, barely able to pretend._

_Oberyn touched her closed eyelids, and then made his hands stray to her cheeks, cupping her face._

_When she opened her eyes again, she was all malicious smile and knowing eyes. He felt the urge to kiss that grin off her face._

_Ashara held onto his forearms as he kissed her, pushing him closer to her, making their centres collide._

_When it became evident that things were getting heated, everyone else quickly evacuated the kitchen, until an unsuspecting someone approached. At the sound of the intruder’s steps, Oberyn pulled away, held Ashara by the hand and led her to the nearest room, a toilet, immediately locking the door._

_Their hasty exit and the way Oberyn so confidently took the reins of the situation made Ashara’s lust increase a good 150%._

_As soon as the door was locked, their eyes crossed for a half-second in which mutual acknowledgments were made (an unspoken_ “Yeah, I want you” _), and then they dropped all pretences and lunged at each other._

_It was a furious kiss. Oberyn cornered her against the wall and his mouth was rough, very enticing, especially when he kissed her so senseless she forgot to actually breathe or respond for a second. Ashara grabbed at his hair, wandered her hands all over him, arched her body and threw her head back when he kissed her chin, pressing against her lower back._

_Ashara yelped when Oberyn lowered himself, grabbed the back of her thighs, lifted her up and pinned her against the wall._

_This was new, and Ashara was stunned for a moment. She instinctively started to grind her hips against his and he quickly noticed that, humping his hips deliberately slow._

_With one hand holding her securely between his body and the wall, he let go of one thigh and started to caress her breasts with just the right amount of pressure, and Ashara had to look at the ceiling so as to avoid moaning out loud. She feared that the view of him doing those things to her would be enough to make her come undone too soon._

_Ashara distantly wondered at how Oberyn knew all of this? She’d seen him with people, of course, but fuck, he was only slightly younger than her –_

_All thoughts ceased to exist when Ashara felt Oberyn’s hand going further down her body, and it probably would find its destination soon, and when it did, oh –_

_Ashara arched herself against Oberyn so sharply that he had to hold the back of her thigh more firmly, and, when he did it, he brought her closer to himself, if that was even possible. At this point, she felt him prickling against her lower belly, and realized that Oberyn was hard._

_Oberyn gathered her in his arms again and she curled her legs around his waist, not letting him go, and then he turned and deposited her on top of the sink._

_Ashara kept kissing Oberyn even as he pulled a little away to undo his belt and unzip his pants – Ashara felt anticipation build up at hearing the sound of him undressing._

_She was thankfully wearing a mini skirt. Oberyn reached between her legs and pulled down her lacey panties, smiling at their delicacy for a moment, then setting it down amid his own clothes._

_Oberyn took advantage of that and started to finger her, and Jesus, was it_ good. _Oberyn was a generous lover, he wanted to give her the same pleasure he was seeking, and oh my god oh my god – he found just the perfect spot, and started to massage it lightly at first, but then with increasing pressure in moments that seemed to last forever –_

_Ashara had to bite his shoulder to keep herself from gasping or moaning or shouting or whatever but she still felt like fucking burning around him, with him._

_He cupped her chin with his free hand and turned her face to meet his. He was surprisingly composed, but Ashara knew him too well, she knew that he was in the throes of pleasure._

_“Is this good?” He whispered huskily, giving an accentuated stroke to make it clear what he was talking about. “I want it to be good for you.”_

_“Are you kidding?” She laughed breathlessly. “It’s great.”_

_He pulled her down to kiss him again and she could feel his grin against her lips._

_She wanted to reciprocate. He was being too good to her._

_She kissed his neck, dragging her lips languidly across his sensitive skin, giving him a hickey or two (she wouldn’t even mind it if he bragged about it later), then reached out between his legs, feeling his hardness, stroking him softly and insistently, causing him to squirm around her._

_She was satisfied to notice that they were even now, he was in the same mad state as her._

_They rested their foreheads against each other for a moment. He stared deep inside her eyes, asking for permission for what came next, and she gave it fully, kissing his cheek._

_What came next would be consensual, necessary and special._

_Oberyn rummaged in his pockets and then found a condom. All the while, Ashara’s mind was strangely blank, and she only registered it when Oberyn was in front of her, displaying a vulnerability she hadn’t known previously, standing there with a condom around him._

_She took him in her arms again, and this time, he had to hold her tighter when he thrust himself inside her rhythmically, wonderfully, endlessly._

_She was clenching around him, so wet and warm, and they were coming against one another, with each other –_

_They came together after a large build-up, and it was as if everything went white and blissful._

_They chuckled loudly, he kissed her cheek tenderly by the corner of her mouth._

_It was all very friendly later. They even high-fived, as if the mutual orgasms had been results of great teamwork. A special friendship was formed that day, and Ashara swore to herself that she would always try to help Oberyn, no matter what. Strangely, she learned more about him on that unknown toilet than in all their years of acquaintance and childhood adventures._

_She also knew that Oberyn would always have this crush on her. She didn’t mind it, not in the slightest, not after what had transpired between them._

_Elia though, was baffled when she heard the news on the following day._

_“I can’t believe you fucked my brother in the bathroom!”_

 

It became something of a running joke between Ashara and Elia, What Happened in That Toilet.

When Elia observed Oberyn staring longingly after Ashara at the party, she thoughtfully put on _Crimson and Clover_ to play in the background. When Ashara realized what song was playing, she cackled in laughter, and so did Oberyn and Elia.

Ashara excused herself from Ned’s company for a moment (they had been cosying up all evening now), and jokingly asked Oberyn out for a dance. They laughed and giggled and remembered the past with fondness, but not nostalgia.

It was all water under the bridge now.

Oberyn smiled at Ashara gratefully, kissed her cheek with goodbye on his lips, and then he let her go, back to her love.

Ned passed an arm around Ashara and kissed her forehead.

Oberyn caught Ned’s eye.

They nodded at each other with almost smiles.

Elia smiled internally when she saw that Oberyn was already cheering up, able to forget his woes, if only for a night.

_Now, I don’t hardly know her_

_But I think I can love her_

_Crimson and clover_

_Over and over_

 

Elia heard someone knocking on her door, and went to pick it up, thinking it was one of the guests.

It wasn’t.

Rhaegar stood in front of her, and, if she didn’t know him any better, she would think that he was nervous.

“Hey”, she greeted, unable to embed her words of joy.

“Hey”, he replied, quite anxiously.

She arched her eyebrows at him, waiting for him to explain himself.

“So, I know that we didn’t part on good terms, and I’m sorry…”

Elia didn’t mind that there was obviously a party going on, she wouldn’t invite him to step in just yet.

“But Elia, please, can I come in? It’s not for the party. Lyanna texted me saying that she would come here to spend the New Year’s Eve, and I figured she would bring Jon…”

Elia looked at his features.

He was evidently more mature now. Fatherhood unexpectedly agreed with him – she didn’t know the details, but apparently, he was making a good job of it, along with Lya.

“Does Lya know you’re here?”

“Yeah, she just… She said that she would invite me, but that she didn’t know if it was cool since it was your house…”

“Is this true?” Elia asked seriously. “I won’t have you come in to bully her or anybody.”

He was about to reply that no, he wasn’t a bully, but then he made the better choice.

“Yeah, I swear it’s true.”

Elia didn’t know why, but she believed him.

“Please, I just want to spend the New Year with my son”, he asked, almost begging.

Elia had never heard him beg for anything. He was too proud.

“Is this why you called me the other day?”, she asked, connecting the dots.

“Yeah”, he admitted awkwardly.

She smiled lopsidedly at him, and stepped back to let him in.

“Also, while we’re on that”, Rhaegar continued. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for everything. And I’m happy that you’re with Arthur now. He’s good for you.”

Elia glanced at Arthur, talking animatedly with Oberyn, making his enthusiasm for cars evident to everyone within earshot. “Yes, I know he is”, she replied sweetly.

Elia smiled at Rhaegar, and shook his hand in an offer for truce.

It was all water under the bridge now.

“Ah”, Rhaegar bended down and picked up a mysterious small box that was left at Elia’s doorstep. “You’ve got mail.”

Elia closed the door, picked up the small box and opened it.

Inside, there was a pair of beautiful, delicate earrings. The earrings had the shape of the sun, and the rays were adorned with little crystals that reflected the lights of the party and sent multiple rainbows across the walls.

Elia only knew one person who could afford an expensive gift such as that.

She grabbed the keys of Arthur’s car, asked him to take care of the party for a bit, and ran as fast as she could.

Her suspicions were proven right.

A lone, blonde figure was walking on the sidewalk, two blocs away from her apartment.

Elia pulled over, carried the small box in her hands, and rushed.

“Cersei?”, she asked hopefully, and her spirits soared when Cersei herself looked back at her.

“Elia”, Cersei exclaimed, surprised.

Elia felt the corners of her lips tugging up.

“Did you give me this?” Elia asked, showed Cersei the earrings.

Cersei nodded in silence.

“Cersei, they’re beautiful!”

Elia quickly put on the earrings, to show Cersei her approval. She even giggled. “I think these are the most beautiful earrings I’ve ever had.”

Cersei nodded again, then turned to leave but Elia stopped her from doing so.

“Cersei, why did you give me these?”

Cersei and Elia weren’t close yet. Sure, Cersei had told information about her brother’s whereabouts when he went missing and that had been instrumental for the authorities to find him before the bandits, but apart from that, she had never tried to initiate a conversation with Elia.

Cersei looked down when she spoke.

“It may sound strange, but…”, and, when the lioness looked up, Elia saw that Cersei’s eyes were red, her face was devoid of make-up and her lips were quaking, “You are the only friend that I have”, Cersei spoke sincerely, and tears streamed down her face.

Cersei sometimes wondered at why she never cried, and, although everyone was convinced of her ruthlessness, this moment belied everything everyone ever said about her.

Elia smiled tenderly, and then she hugged Cersei.

Elia understood Cersei all too well. Cersei was one of those people who felt the loneliness come in small drops.

Elia didn’t know that, but on that day, Cersei had wandered the streets with nowhere to go and no one to see. She went from the first stop of the subway to the last twice. She bought things for herself at the mall, but nothing that could be shared with anyone else – except for Elia’s gift.

When Elia broke the hug, she asked Cersei to come along. She had to insist, but Cersei was secretly very eager to go.

They went back to the party inside Elia’s car, and Elia hoped that Cersei was already warming up, making the cold inside of her go away.

When Elia arrived with Cersei in tow, no one asked any questions, only took in Cersei like she was a stray.

Ashara smiled to Elia knowingly, very proudly, and Elia smiled back.

 

_Three, two, one!_

_Happy New Year!_


	10. Of love.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia and Ashara go on...
> 
>  
> 
> (I'm sorry for the delay! I had a huge writer's block, it was horrible. This chapter was written and rewritten half a dozen times, and this is by far the simplest version of events. I'm also sorry for the false alarm for updates you must have gotten like, three weeks ago. Ironically, I was on a girls night out and when I went to show one of my bfs this story, she quite clumsily deleted the first chapter and put the story out of order. I swear we were not drunk.)  
> (Without further ado, here's the final chapter!)

It wasn’t the wind. Elia heard a distinct knock at the door, and groaned aloud at the prospect of having to get up at her current state.

She sighed and made an effort to will the dormant muscles in her body to harden and get her to the door.

When Elia unlocked the door, however, she felt like she had been given a gift, and a smile quickly spread across her cheeks.

“Ashara!”

Elia hugged Ashara, and noted to herself that her voice didn’t sound as bad as it had earlier with the sore throat.

“Hey”, her friend replied, eyes restlessly flitting across the room. “Can we talk?”

“Of course, dear”, Elia said, bracing herself for having to deal with whatever had made Ashara upset. “Turn on the TV, make yourself at home… I’ll fix us a drink.”

There was an underlying pride in playing hostess to Ashara even when she was ill. Elia retrieved the clean tissues on her bedside table (she needed them more than medicine at this point) and went to prepare hot chocolate. Ashara hadn’t exactly pictured hot chocolate when Elia mentioned ‘drinks’, but perhaps those were better than the beverages she was in the mood for drinking.

“You just saved me from a hell of a hangover”, Ashara admitted when Elia handed her the mug that Ashara always drank from when she went to Elia’s house.

“I know”, Elia replied, the soft wrinkles in her face curling up to show an understanding smile. “Are you even surprised?”

“Not at all”, Ashara smiled, because it was true. Leave it to Elia to always take care of her.

A pause.

“What are you watching?”, Elia asked, nodding at the TV.

Ashara didn’t reply. The hosts of the show promptly announced an interview “… _by Catelyn Tully._ ”

“She really made it”, Elia noted.

“Yeah. Now she’s a top-notch reporter. Ned said that Brandon said that she’s going to interview Malala Yousafzai next week.”

Elia studied her friend. Ashara had her eyes glued on the TV, face impassive.

“Good for her”, Elia said carefully. “And to think that it was basically you who launched her into stardom.”

Ashara smiled awkwardly. “It wasn’t me, you know that. She was the one doing the questions. She’s a very competent journalist.” There was something about Catelyn’s professionalism that pleased Ashara. During their interview, Catelyn spoke courteously, but not sympathetically, in the perfect tone for an impartial reporter.

During family barbecues, however, Catelyn was polite, dignified and witty. Fun to be around, most definitely.

“You and Oberyn gave her a big scoop. Plenty of material to work with.”

Ashara smirked at the memory of the interview. They had only agreed to do it in the first place as a favor to Ned, who had only asked for it as a favor to Brandon, who was quite obviously trying to court Catelyn.

Ashara had been apprehensive at first – there was a certain trepidation at the notion that Oberyn would be all skittish and hard at the interview. When the interview started and Catelyn was still doing the warm-up questions, Oberyn didn’t even flinch, but then he got progressively tenser when the questions were hard to answer, until he ultimately started to fumble inside his pockets for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter (which Doran had taken away before the interview started for fear that Oberyn would get nervous and light up that thing in front of the cameras), and just gave a hard-earned shrug when Catelyn asked what would he do if he could see the men who shot him again. After the imperious silence that followed, Ashara took the reins and helped Oberyn to answer the questions.

It made for a good interview, so to say. As an exclusive, it propelled Catelyn up in her network. Oberyn and Ashara gained further notoriety and even became symbols of courage, even though they didn’t care for that very much.

The public trusted them, however. People reached out to them.

It was then that Elia figured the world of good that Ashara could do with the attention. She gave Ashara the idea to create an institute to encourage little girls to study, due to Ashara’s image in the media regarding her qualifications as an engineer.

The suggestion awoke a fire within Ashara, as if it were the answer for all their problems. When Ashara was a child, she heard that “ _Science is for boys, try Literature_ ”, “ _There are no good female writers in Literature, try Music_ ”, “ _Women only sing sappy love songs, try…_ ”

And suddenly Ashara realized that she didn’t have to take it anymore – and if she could stop it from happening to other girls, she would. The girls in her school wouldn’t have to feel dumb and choose unfulfilling careers because someone told them they weren’t smart enough to pursue their dreams.

Ashara threw a blowjob festival for Ned when she heard that he not only agreed with Elia’s idea, but that he would help her by teaching there too.

(He figured that if Lyanna had been given more options, if she had found a subject that made her truly happy, if she had been more encouraged to do the things that she was passionate about – maybe her life would have been very different.)

The public jumped at the idea, and donations from all around the country were sent to help Ashara open up the institute.

At Elia’s recommendation, Cersei Lannister became one of the main contributors. Cersei wasn’t one for charity, but this simply felt right for her. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have tons of money to spend, and soon a daughter to raise.

“How are things at the school?”, Elia asked again, wondering why Ashara was so quiet.

“They’re terrific. I think I’ve never been so happy, actually.”

“Then why are you brooding?”, Elia prodded.

At this, Ashara turned to look at her and Elia muted the TV without even looking. It felt like a serious moment, and she wouldn’t be able to concentrate with the sounds.

“Elia”, Ashara said feebly. “I think Ned is going to propose.”

Elia couldn’t contain a squeal for the life of her.

“WHAAAAAAAAA-“

Ashara giggled, and Elia could see that she wasn’t exactly forlorn. The smile she gave was bright and proud.

“Why do you think so?”, Elia asked, excited. She never abandoned her fairy tales, after all.

“It all started with Little Benjen, actually. You know that he’s abroad, he’s an exchange student in Norway now. Ned is paying for it. Then Ned decided to move out with Lyanna and Jon, because let’s face it, Ned and Brandon butt their heads too often and we all deserve a bit of peace. And on top of that, Catelyn talked Lyanna into taking a photography class, which I think it’s an excellent idea, and now Lyanna is inspired and she has been promoted in her job and she’ll soon move out with Jon-“

“And what has that to do with anything?”

“Elia, don’t you see? Ned is, his issues with his family are solving themselves. They’re living their own lives now. And Ned… He can live his own life.”

Elia was surprised to see Ashara’s eyes watering up.

“You’re so _cute_ when you’re crying for _love!_ ”, Elia exclaimed, not able to resist a hug.

“Elia”, was the only thing that Ashara could say when Elia crushed her in a hug.

“Wait, this is because of love, right?”

Ashara giggled girlishly. “Yeah, I’m just… Whenever he speaks about the future, I’m just kind of nervous, you know. It doesn’t mean I’m not happy, which I am. It’s just that I was never one for planning. I’m scared.”

“I know you are, but you know everything’s going to work out for the best in the end. You love each other”, Ashara smiled softly in agreement, “and you have a good relationship. Financial stability. Professional contentment. Character. Good things all around.”

Elia was right, Ashara realized. Simple words of reassurance from her friend were enough to put an ease to her worries. And of course, Ned hadn’t even proposed yet. But when he did – and she knew he would – she would be ready.

“Everything is so simple for you”, Ashara noted.

“I’m just a hypocrite. I’m terrified of some things myself.”

Elia looked away, rubbing the bridge of her nose and cleaning her nostrils with another tissue.

“What?”

Elia stared at Ashara guardedly.

“You never asked why I’m ill.”

Ashara frowned. Elia had always been very susceptible to sickness: in winters, especially, she was always coughing and sneezing, so this time Ashara hadn’t made much of Elia’s state.

Ashara unconsciously gripped Elia’s hand.

“Are you ill?”

At this, Elia gave Ashara the brightest grin of all.

“I’m pregnant.”

Ashara leapt from the couch in shock. No Caps Lock could ever express her thoughts at the moment, but it was safe to say that hysteria was the dominant one.

“OH MY GAAAAAAAAAAAWD-“

Elia laughed out loud, a rich laugh from her belly. Her hand came to rest at her stomach, on top of the swell of her belly.

“ELIA YOU- YOU LIL’- I CAN’T BELIEVE-“

Elia took out her phone and recorded Ashara’s reaction. This was just too much.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, explain yourself!”, Ashara ordered, and she still wasn’t very much calm.

“I slept with Arthur, and now I’m pregnant with your niece.”

“NIECE? HOW DO YOU KNOW?”

“I took an ultrasound test, silly”, Elia chuckled. “I’m due on November.”

“Jesus”, Ashara was speechless. “And how are you… You know… Dealing with it?”

“Apart from the morning sickness that lasts the whole day, I’m pretty much fine. Arthur doesn’t know about it yet, so shut up, huh? I want it to be a surprise.”

“He’ll be thrilled, no doubt. He has been doing dad jokes for _years._ Oh God, he’ll totally use this as an excuse to wear those horrid fanny packs.”

“I think it would be sexy.”

“Ew. Just, ew.”

Elia grinned again. “But I’m also exhilarated.”

Ashara smiled kindly, and finally her reaction wasn’t explosive. “I can imagine.”

Elia held Ashara’s hand.

“I wanted you to be the first to know.”

Ashara pretended to herself that her eyes weren’t filled with tears, happy tears.

“Why?”, she managed to ask in a strangled voice.

“Because, well. Both of our lives are about to change again, and Ash, you’re my best friend in the whole entire world.”

( _She grinned from ear to ear and announced loud and clear, “To my best friend in the whole entire world!”, handing the slice to Elia._ )

Ashara’s eyes immediately reddened and a few fat droplets of water rolled down her cheek. For once she wasn’t ashamed of them, even when she brushed them away.

( _So Elia smiled widely and hugged Ashara with pure emotion, faintly hearing the sounds of cheers from the other ones at the party, and quietly whispered in Ashara’s ear, “You are my best friend forever too.”_ )

“I love you”, Ashara told Elia, and for a moment too long they held each other in a hug so tight Elia actually forgot to breathe for a moment, laughing in breathless joy. “You’re my best friend.”

Ashara caressed Elia’s belly, and Elia laughed.

She knew that they would always be there for each other – they had been ever since they were little children, and would be all the way through. There wasn’t a happier ending than that, or anything that made her more emotional. Love was binding them – together, whenever, forever.

“So”, Ashara smiled through her tears, “our next meeting will be a baby shower for my niece, and I’m calling Cersei, Lyanna and Catelyn.”

“Deal”, Elia agreed, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAND THAT'S A WRAP!  
> I know this finale is quite crappy, but hey! They are ALIVE and HAPPY! Isn't that enough for us, G. R. R. Martin readers?  
> I'm gonna miss you, guys. Your comments and kudos made me immensely happy, I kinda want to throw a party for you in celebration.  
> Thanks for reading! <3  
> (Sequel with Cersei and Oberyn fucking, who's in?) (Just kidding) (I'm really not tho) (hELP)

**Author's Note:**

> Because I'm a sucker for female friendships. 
> 
> Weekly updates :D


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